On the Rainbow Road
by ohmytheon
Summary: Uraraka is trying to get over her motion sickness while playing video games; Bakugou just wants to come in first like he does at everything else. When bets start tossed into the mix, however, things start to spiral into a completely different, more intense direction.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:** Thank you to thesvenmachine on the Kacchako Discord for sending me this idea and coming up with a few pointers! I chose Mario Kart because I've been playing it with my little cousin almost every day and it's instilling Baku Rage in me. I'm so tired of getting beat by an eight year-old.

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

* * *

Game night started out simple enough.

It was Kaminari's fault, which was basically the default for every ridiculous thing that happened in the dorms. Bakugou was almost certain of it. Even if it seemed like someone else started something, it could always be traced back to Kaminari. The sparky, little shit had a way of integrating his dumb face into everything and he was better at starting things than most people realized.

This time, it was due to an argument between him and Jirou about who was better at a certain video game. No one knew what the game was until Kaminari dragged his entire gaming console out of his dorm and plugged it into the television in the common room area. It was so he and Jirou could play together and determine who the true champion was, seeing as how there had been a crack down on boys and girls going to each other's dorms.

(This was the one time Kaminari was not to blame, as Bakugou was positive that Kaminari was trying to use the game in order to win Jirou over. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was just due to Mineta being a stupid shit. The only other people he could think of was Deku and Uraraka since Deku was always mooning over her, but the idea of that happening made Bakugou want to blow something up. It was gross.)

What started out as Kaminari and Jirou playing what turned out to be some version of Mario Kart with a few people watching ended up turning into an all out tournament between the entire class, but it wasn't just some fun thing that everybody participated in every Thursday night. No, it was much more than that.

It was brutal. It was _war_.

Kirishima brought out his controllers so that more people could play at a time, transforming the two person game into a four person battle royale. People were knocked out of the running with blue and red shells left and right. Curses were thrown towards fellow classmates, their families, and future children. Food was thrown. People stopped speaking to each other for at least ten minutes sometimes. Iida had actually rage quit after Ashido had repeatedly wrecked him and caused him to get last place multiple times.

Though he didn't play nearly as often as some of the others, Bakugou always won every time he did. He'd snag a controller after someone was kicked out and demolish the competition. The first time he'd wiped everyone at the game, they'd all been shocked. Bakugou knew that he didn't look like the kind of kid that spent time locked in his room playing video games, but it really did help with his hand-eye coordination. Besides that, he liked the brief adrenaline boost that racing games gave him and he liked to win.

It took an almost embarrassing amount of time to notice that one person never participated in the games. Sitting on the sidelines like a cheerleader was Uraraka. She'd perch on the arm of the couch next to Asui or Deku or on the floor next to Kaminari or Ashido, but she never took the controllers. They were offered to her, of course, but she would always pass, claiming that she'd maybe join the next game or someone else really wanted to play. It was unusual for Uraraka, who he knew threw herself into everything.

She liked to win too. She might not have been as good as him at things, but she wasn't the type of person that passed up on things. It was suspicious behavior that only he seemed to mark or notice. Not that he cared about it, of course. It was just...curious.

After a particularly vicious Mario Kart tournament that ended with Kirishima as the winner and Sero throwing his controller at him (so close to first), everyone meandered off to bed so that they wouldn't completely regret school the next morning. Bakugou had been about to crash when he decided that he wanted a glass of water. On his way to the kitchen though, he heard the telltale noises of the video game that they'd been playing all night. At first, he'd thought it might be in his head since they'd been going at it hard for a few hours, but no, it was on.

Someone was still playing.

He had to pass the common room area in order to get to the kitchen, so curiosity got the better of him and he looked over in the direction of the television. There, sitting on the couch by herself, the bright glow of the tv causing her to look like nothing more than a dark shadow, was unmistakably Uraraka. He could pick her profile out a hundred meters away. Not that it meant anything. She just had a specific body frame.

Even though he'd come out here to get a glass of water, Bakugou stopped to watch her. So she wouldn't play with everyone else but she would play on her own? Did she think she was too good for everyone? Maybe she was really embarrassed by how _bad_ she was. Gods knew Aoyama shouldn't play Mario Kart in public. He was fucking awful.

However, after watching her play a few rounds, Bakugou noticed something peculiar. She took breaks. Not odd in itself, but she took them often. After playing a whole round, she paused the game and then held her head. It was the universal sign of a headache or just not feeling well. Still, she took a deep breath and started again, this time lasting a little longer. It reminded him…

It reminded him of when she used her quirk on herself for too long. From what he remembered, if she used her quirk on herself or too much, it made her extremely nauseous. He'd learned that knowing his classmates' quirks, along with their strengths and weaknesses, came in handy during class lessons so that he could get a better grade. He could admit to having been curious about hers since they'd fought in their first sports festival. The girl had created a meteor shower over him and then passed the fuck out. It kind of left an impression.

Apparently one of her other weaknesses was Mario Kart.

"What the hell are you doing, Round Face?" Bakugou demanded.

Uraraka jumped so badly on the couch that she never went down, having activated her quirk on herself and floating to the ceiling. "Oh my god, Bakugou! You scared me half the death!" She still had a hold of the controller, which was plugged in to charge after a night of use, so she carefully pulled herself back down and deactivated her quirk to plop back down on the couch.

Bakugou made his way over there and jumped over the back of it to sit next to her, ignoring what she'd said since she had clearly ignored his question. "You'll play by yourself but not with everyone else?" He folded his arms and leaned back against the couch. "Even I play with the others. I thought you were Little Miss Team Player?"

"N-no!" Uraraka blushed, the pink of her cheeks standing out despite the glow of the television washing her out. "I mean, yes, I am!" She gripped the controller tightly and looked down at it. "I'm not… I'm not good at video games."

That made Bakugou snort. "Oh, so you just suck and you're embarrassed."

"It's not that!" Uraraka insisted angrily.

"Oh really?" Bakugou countered. "Then what is it, weak ass?"

Uraraka's face was screwed up in determination as she glared at him, inches away from his face, but then it faded into embarrassment and she looked away from him again. "I get...kind of sick when I play some video games." He didn't say anything in response to that, which prompted a girl like Uraraka into explaining herself further. She just had to get her point across so she didn't look too bad. She really did think about what others thought of her too much. "It's kind of like if I use my quirk too much! I start to feel dizzy or nauseous. Not all video games do it, but this one really gets the best of me. All those windy roads and the bright graphics and explosions…"

"So you just play it by yourself after everyone leaves as punishment?" Bakugou asked.

"As training!" Uraraka corrected, so sincerely that Bakugou couldn't even laugh at her outright. "The more I practice, the longer I can play without getting sick. Then I'll be able to play with everyone!"

She really was staying out here every Thursday after everyone went to bed playing this dumb game on her own so that she'd get better at handling her queasiness and be able to join the Mario Kart tournament. She was pushing herself to her limit over a video game. It was so like her that Bakugou didn't even know what to say. It was so absurd and stupid that she was getting this worked up over a game.

Then again, he remembered all the times he'd rage quit and throw the controllers when he was first learning how to play and the computer beat him. He could only imagine having to go through that while feeling like tossing his cookies. It did not make for a pleasant experience.

Despite the looming threat of being puked on, Bakugou picked up the second controller. "Well, you're not going to get better by competing only against a computer."

"Oh, you don't have to!" Uraraka exclaimed. "I don't mind. I'm not that good yet."

"I know I don't have to," Bakugou responded as he set up the next race. She raised her eyebrows. Before she could even say anything about that, he continued, "I've creamed everyone else in this game except for you, so I've gotta mark you off my list."

Uraraka's eyebrows dropped and she sighed as if she'd expected him to say something like that, but then she twisted her lips as a look of intense concentration came over her face and she nodded her head once. She was ready - or as ready as she could be. He could feel her taking deep breaths next to him, preparing herself for the race. He chose a long course, which would push her more. He could tell she was uneasy about it, but she said nothing as the game loaded.

"Scared?" he asked her, glancing at her out of the corner of his eyes.

Uraraka smirked at him. "You wish."

It should not have done anything for him, but it did and he turned his attention back to the screen. Nope, he was not going to get distracted. He was going to demolish her.

The first game went clearly in his favor. She came in fifth while he was in first by a longshot. However, she didn't stop to get sick or anything and she even looked like she was enjoying herself. The second game he could tell that she was starting to struggle. She'd bit her lip, squirm in her seat, and take deep breaths. But when he asked her if she was done, in a not-so-kind tone, she'd shoved him with her arm and told him to start the next race.

They were in the middle of the third game, on the second loop out of three, when Uraraka's character hit one of the clear mystery boxes. She had a bad habit of going for them and somehow either missing them or a computer taking it right in front of her. "Oh, a red shell! What if I just-?"

"I swear to god, Uraraka, if you hit me-"

Uraraka pressed the button anyways. Somehow, the red shell avoided two computer characters and hit his, sending Yoshi spiraling in the air and flopping down on the ground. It cost him first place and he swore. "Damnit, that cost me half my coins!" He pressed hard on the accelerator button, as if it would help him go faster. Next to him, all Uraraka did was giggle. Her character didn't catch up with his but still. It pissed him off. Why couldn't she have hit any of the other racers?

Through either sheer determination or dumb luck, Uraraka managed to work herself up to second place with Bakugou in her sight. They were on the third lap though and nearing the finish line. There was no way she could catch up with him now, even if she hit all the speed boosters. He snagged a mystery item box, getting a banana, which he threw back at her. She dodged it just barely and caught an item box by accident.

When it finally chose what it would give her, Bakugou shot her a glare. "Don't you fucking dare."

"What?" Uraraka asked innocently. "What does a blue shell do?"

"You better not-"

She most definitely did, pressing the button to release the blue shell. It hit his character, sending him flying, and he watched in horror as Uraraka's character sped past him right over the finish line. The shell had struck his character at just the right moment, keeping him from winning and forcing him into a measly place. As soon as her victory was announced, Uraraka dropped her controller and jumped up on the couch, cheering for herself obnoxiously.

"Get the fuck down, you idiot!" Bakugou growled, grabbing the bottom of her tank top and jerking down on her hard. She went tumbling on the couch on her back and her feet hit him in the legs. Before he could shove her away though, she took one look at the television screen and then bolted into the kitchen. He could hear her gagging over the sink, but she didn't puke. He heard the sink running and then she came back with a glass of water.

A little pale in the face, Uraraka sheepishly told him, "Sorry, I held off for as long as I could," before sitting back down on the couch.

"Fucking gross," Bakugou said.

"I think it's because I immerse myself too much in the game," Uraraka said as she sunk back into the couch. She watched the replay of their last game with heavy lids, clutching the glass of water against her chest. "But you were right. It was better playing against someone. I could distract myself."

"You knew what that blue shell did," Bakugou accused.

Uraraka smiled up at him, like some sort of angel. "Did I?" Maybe it was more like a devil.

Standing up, Bakugou pointed a finger at her. "You better be ready for next week. I'm going to kick your ass."

"I look forward to it," Uraraka replied and he knew that she meant it. The challenge was set and neither one of them would back down. The fact that it was implied that they wouldn't be playing with everyone else but only with each other after everyone left didn't need to be said. He rather liked this one-on-one thing. Not because it was with her or anything, but because no one was hovering around him being irritating. Well, as long as Uraraka didn't start floating at least. That was for another time if she really wanted to try something difficult.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes:** I got too many ideas while chatting about this fic to let it go.

* * *

Because Kaminari took his gaming console back to his room the next day, Bakugou didn't get his chance at Mario Kart redemption until the next week. For the most part, he didn't think about it, seeing as how U.A. liked to kick their asses, but every now and then when he had downtime, it would cross his mind and he couldn't wait. He'd catch eyes with Uraraka in class and glare at her, letting her know that he was going to crush her, and she'd look away quickly, biting her lip like she was trying to keep herself from laughing.

Yeah, yeah, she could laugh it up now. She wasn't going to be laughing when he utterly destroyed her in the game.

Come that Thursday night, the class did its usual thing. Sero and Kirishima had made up by then, baking a shit ton of treats so that everyone could snack while fighting via a video game. Everyone crammed around the television as Kaminari hooked up his system and then immediately began to bicker over who got to play first. As always, Bakugou hung back and Uraraka stayed out of it even when Deku asked her if she wanted to give it a go. She must have felt Bakugou eyeing her after that little exchange because she glanced at him and blush flooded her cheeks. It was almost too easy to embarrass her.

The night went by in a blur and ended with Iida finally winning for once. He was so thrilled that he looked like he was about to cry as Deku and Uraraka congratulated him. With his title taken away for the week, Kirishima was left to pout and swear vengeance.

"I can't believe you let Four Eyes beat you," Bakugou said as he and Kirishima made their way back to their dorms.

"I'll get back at him next week," Kirishima insisted. "I'm gonna take him down!"

Now that was the kind of fighting spirit that Bakugou could understand.

They split upon reaching their dorms. Bakugou changed into a tank top and some basketball shorts and set about doing some reading for class. He really didn't want to, but he didn't take any breaks when it came to school. Within thirty minutes though, he realized that he'd barely put a dent in it and he wasn't even paying attention. His mind kept roving to the game and Uraraka's dumb face.

What if he went out to the common room area and she wasn't there? What if he didn't go out there and she was there? Had he looked into those looks between them too much? When she'd said that she looked forward to them playing again next week, had she been only saying that or had she actually meant it? After all, it wasn't like they'd actually committed to playing again this week. He didn't want to go out there and look like a complete idiot.

If he did and she wasn't there, he'd be pissed as hell at himself for expecting her. And if he did and she was there, well, he'd probably still be mad because then it was like she was expecting him.

Whatever. It didn't matter. He didn't care what people thought of him, least of all Uraraka.

Slamming his book shut, Bakugou stood up and stretched. He slipped out of his dorm and started for the common room area. He heard the sounds of the game before he saw the light and a smirk slowly etched itself onto his face. There was Uraraka, playing Mario Kart, an intense expression on her face. He saw her jump when her character was hit by a red shell and could hear her muttering under her breath. Without warning her of his arrival, he plopped down on the couch next to her.

Uraraka jumped again, this time because of him, and her character crashed into a wall. "Bakugou! I didn't think you would actually come."

He shot her a scowl. "Why the hell not? I told you I was gonna kick your ass."

"Oh, I, um…" Uraraka smiled at him. "Let's do this then!"

Just as he had warned her, Bakugou kicked her ass in the game. He didn't let her win once, absolutely relentless in his desire to win, no matter how much she complained or felt ill. One time, when she started feeling sick, he wouldn't even pause the game`while she ran off to gag in the sink. It wasn't his fault that she got motion sickness from a video game. If she was going to let her weakness get the best of her, losing was what she deserved.

They spent an hour going at it until finally Uraraka was done getting demolished. Not even a blue shell had helped her win this time. By the time they were at the end of their night, Uraraka was pale and moody and Bakugou felt flush with success. She tossed her controller on the ground and frowned in his direction. He threw her a smirk.

"You didn't have to be so mean," Uraraka told him.

"You want to get better, right?" Bakugou countered.

"Well, yeah, but-"

"You're not gonna get close to number one by me going easy on you," Bakugou interrupted.

Uraraka folded her arms over her chest and grumbled under her breath, "Who said anything about becoming number one? I just wanted to get over my motion sickness…"

He pointedly ignored her. There was no sense in trying to do something if it didn't mean becoming the best. "Do you want to just keep sitting on the sidelines watching everybody pass you up?" He'd been talking about the game, but the way Uraraka's eyes widened briefly and then narrowed into a glare, she had taken it another more serious way. A hint of pride flared inside of him. Good. That was good.

"Same time next week?" Uraraka asked him, tilting her head up to him as he stood up and stretched.

"Count on it, Angel Face," Bakugou snarked before leaving the room.

A strange feeling of content settled in his gut as he made his way back to his dorm room. Her asking him that meant that there would be no confusion come next week and no confusion meant that he wouldn't get irritated. He hated uncertainties. They always made him feel like he was in limbo and he couldn't stand it.

Still, it did feel kind of weird knowing that he had plans with Uraraka that no one else knew about. He was positive that she hadn't told anyone. If she had, they would've bothered him, especially Deku or Asui. He wasn't going to tell anyone because it wasn't their business and Uraraka clearly wanted to keep her issues a secret for whatever reason. Maybe she was afraid of getting teased, but then Bakugou knew that he was probably the worst person to have found out if that was the issue.

Kindness and comfort were not his known specialties.

Uraraka could handle it though and she didn't seem to mind the way he pushed her. She wanted to get over her problem and, well, Bakugou liked winning and she turned so red in the cheeks when she lost. It was entertaining.

 _Next week,_ Bakugou thought as he laid in bed and rested his hands behind his head. _We'll have to do something to push her or she'll get stagnant and I'll get bored._

How Uraraka always managed to beat him back to the common area was a mystery. Did she not leave? It would have been easier to do that, but Bakugou didn't want to give any of their classmates any dumb ideas. If any of them caught wind of this, they'd come up with some wild assumptions and he didn't feel like getting in trouble for exploding one of them to next Tuesday.

This was just...something. A bit of fun. A stress reliever. He liked playing video games, but it was best done either by himself or one-on-one. The whole group party thing grated on him after a while. It was more amusing when it was just with one other person and Uraraka had becoming that unwitting partner.

Uraraka handed him the controller before he even sat down on the couch. When Bakugou glanced over in her direction, he noticed a small trash can sitting on the ground next to her and a glass of water within reach. He smirked to himself. Now she was getting serious.

It didn't occur to him until after they finished the first round (he had won, of course) that they hadn't actually said anything to each other yet. She had been in the zone the second he arrived, having already played a game or two no doubt, and he had let himself be swept up in the mood, already familiar with it.

As they set up the next race, Bakugou decided to double the intensity. "How about we up the ante?"

"Huh?" Uraraka paused, turning her head to give him a confused look with a furrowed brow and twisted lips.

"It's not fun just beating you all the time," Bakugou continued. She reached out to smack him in the arm, but he pulled to the side quick enough for her to miss. He was sure that she would've activated her quirk on him and sent him flying to the ceiling for that remark. "You've gotta make it worth my while."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Uraraka demanded, her cheeks looking pinker than normal. It might've been from the glow of the television though.

Bakugou shrugged his shoulders. "Let's bet on the race."

"You sound like a gambling addict," Uraraka told him. That wasn't a no though, so he knew that he had her in the bag. She was just trying to stall for time as she worked up the courage. "What kind of bets?"

"I don't know," Bakugou replied. "Whatever you want. I'm not coming up with ideas for you."

Uraraka did the act of thinking it over when he knew that she'd already made up her mind. Maybe she didn't know that, but he saw the way she held onto the controller tightly. She wasn't the type to back down from a challenge, not anymore. If she said no, it would make her look scared or weak. If she said yes, she would have to suffer any consequences should she lose - and she would lose. Maybe not every time now that there was something more on the line than just pride, but still, it was inevitable at least once or twice.

"Okay," Uraraka told him, her voice quieter as she cringed in preparation for what she'd be forced to do.

A terrible grin worked its way onto Bakugou's face and he could just tell that she was regretting her decision from the sour way that she looked back at him. "If I win, you have to stand up in class tomorrow and tell everyone that I'm going to be the number one hero."

"That's ridiculous!" Uraraka exclaimed. "It'll be weird and random and it might upset-" When Bakugou began to cackle, she snapped her mouth shut and glared at him. "Why must you pick on Deku still?"

"It'll piss off Half and Half too," Bakugou pointed out. He could already see it now and he loved it. The confused looks on everyone's face, a faintly upset one on Deku's, Todoroki's irritated expression, and probably Aizawa looking tired by everything. The fact that it was Uraraka saying it would throw everyone off. It was funny. And it was the truth, but mostly it would be hilarious.

After coming to terms with his bet, Uraraka fixed him with a serious look and said, "If I win, you have to buy Todoroki's lunch tomorrow."

Bakugou almost choked on his tongue. "What the fuck, Uraraka!" He had thought that his grin was awful, but the one on her face right now was downright maniacal. He'd never seen her look like this before and it actually took him aback. This was a side of Uraraka that he hadn't known. Was she not the sweet, innocent girl that he'd thought of her as for two years? "Can't I just buy you lunch?"

Uraraka shook her head. "Not embarrassing enough."

"That's not embarrassing," Bakugou informed her. "It's cruel."

"Oh, are you scared?" Uraraka teased. "I thought you wanted to play hard ball."

A growl rumbled in the back of Bakugou's throat and he smashed the keys on the controller to choose his vehicle with a sort of viciousness that was usually followed with explosions. "I'll show you hard ball."

And so they played, best games out of five. She won the first, which knocked him off guard and nearly caused him to lose the second race. The third game ended with neither one of them winning after they managed to take each other out and so a computer character won. However, he won the last two, cinching his victory and saving him from humiliation.

Even though she was clearly bummed about losing and not looking forward to tomorrow, Uraraka didn't look upset as she sunk back into the couch. She looked relaxed, one hand rubbing her stomach as the other rested on the couch in between them next to his thigh, still holding onto the controller. The different colors on the tv shimmered across her face, giving her an unearthly glow in the dark room.

"You were right," she finally said. "The bet made me push myself more."

Well of course he'd been right. She hadn't gotten sick once while they were playing. It occurred to him that once she got over her motion sickness, she wouldn't need these nights of playing Mario Kart after everyone went to bed. That feeling of uncertainty crept into his mind again and he shoved it back as far as he could. No sense in thinking about that right now.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day in their homeroom class, Bakugou was already sitting at his desk when Uraraka walked in with Deku and Asui at her sides. He had been listening to Kirishima talking about some new action movie coming out next week when he caught eyes with Uraraka and allowed a faint smirk to appear on his face. She jerked her eyes away from his, blush already appearing on her cheeks, and sat down quietly at her desk as Deku and Asui continued to talk, not noticing her sudden silence.

Oh, this was going to be good.

He wasn't certain when Uraraka would own up to the bet, but he had a feeling that it would either be soon or at the end of the day. She'd either want to get it out of the way or wait until they were in their last class so that she could avoid any awkward questions or confused looks. He really hoped her anxiety won out in the end so that the whole thing would hang over her head the rest of the day.

Any embarrassment would fuel her desire to beat him at Mario Kart and it would help spur her forward, so really, this was for her own good. Bakugou was being helpful.

Aizawa started the class shortly after, tearing Bakugou's attention away from her, but every now and then, it would slip in her direction. Uraraka was doing a good job listening to their teacher, but then he'd catch her touching the pads of her fingers together in some sort of musical pattern, careful not to touch them all at once lest she float herself in the middle of class. She was clearly nervous and probably questioning why she had allowed herself to make a bet with him in the first place. She'd known that she would lose in the beginning and yet she'd done it anyways.

Now it was time to pay the price.

Homeroom came to an end. Everyone was mentally switching to their next class, except for Uraraka, who had frozen in her seat as a determined expression came over her face. It felt as if Bakugou's chest was bursting with vicious glee as he watched Uraraka slowly stand up. This was it. This was the moment of truth. He had to clench his fists to keep himself from grinning already.

Uraraka closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and practically shouted, "Bakugou is the best and he's going to become the number one hero!" and then dropped back down in her seat.

The entire class went through a rollercoaster of reactions. First, utter silence and shock as they gawked at her turned to confused babbling and questions, then changed into sparks of irritation in some and wild accusations, and finally back to confusion again. Uraraka responded to absolutely no one, burying her lobster red face in her textbook and pretending as if she wasn't in the room and couldn't hear anyone.

Just as he'd expected, the only two people to not say anything out loud were Deku and Todoroki. The expression on Deku's face looked like a cross between genuinely hurt and utterly lost as he gaped at Uraraka. No doubt she would say something later to make him feel better, but her random outburst had definitely thrown him off and he appeared to be at a loss for words. Meanwhile, Todoroki never responded to such things out loud, but he was sharply tapping a pencil on his desk and eyeing Uraraka darkly. His mismatched gaze swung to Bakugou and he narrowed his eyes as smirk found its way onto Bakugou's face.

Did Todoroki suspect that Bakugou had put Uraraka up to it? Whatever, it didn't matter. Even if he did, Half and Half didn't know what for or how. None of them knew about him and Uraraka playing video games together after everyone went to bed. It was their thing and he wanted to keep it that way. Sure, doing things like this might jeopardize that since it was bleeding it into their daily life, but that danger was half the fun.

The smirk didn't leave Bakugou's face when Uraraka tilted her head to the side to glower at him. If anything, her almost murderous gaze made it broaden. _You're going to pay for this,_ her eyes said and he couldn't wait. Bring it on.

* * *

It was raining, so Bakugou had decided to do his usual run in the gym. He wasn't a fan of treadmills, but it was either that or skip it and he didn't skip things just because of some rain. WIth his headphones in, he was totally in the zone, focused on his breathing and the raging music in his ears. Even though his eyes were open, he wasn't really paying attention to what was going on around him, so he was caught off guard by the sudden slap on his arm that sent him flying to the ceiling.

Or, well, floating.

"Uraraka, what the hell!" Bakugou's back hit the ceiling and he caught sight of that very girl standing underneath him, her hands now on her hips. He jerked his earbuds out of his ears. "Let me down!"

"That's for being an ass," Uraraka told him as she gazed up at him.

Bakugou glowered at her and folded his arms across his chest. "You're the one that agreed to the bet."

"I looked like a weirdo and an idiot!" Uraraka exclaimed.

"Then don't lose next time," Bakugou shot back. "Besides, you can't look like an idiot if it's true."

Uraraka's perpetually pink cheeks seemed to glow. Still, she didn't make a move to let him down, so as usual, he had to do things himself. Propping his feet on the ceiling, he kicked off so that he floated downwards, like he was in water, and grabbed onto the railing of the treadmill. He floated like a balloon with his feet hanging above him, but at least his face was level with Uraraka's now, only inches separating them.

"You done complaining now?" Bakugou asked.

She stared at him for a few more seconds and then huffed, lifting her hands from her hips so that she could press her fingers together and sigh, "Release."

His feet dropped down and he was careful to not land on the treadmill belt so that he wouldn't get jerked onto the ground since it was still running. He turned the machine off and then jumped down to her level, still tall enough to tower over her in what most considered a threatening manner. However, it didn't faze Uraraka in the slightest, who tilted her chin up and flexed her fingers as if she was considering sending him to the ceiling again.

"You're gonna regret it," Uraraka warned him.

Bakugou smiled, showing all his teeth, like some sort of predator. "I'd like to see you try."

The wait for next Thursday was too long for Bakugou's taste, but neither one of them could ask Kaminari if they could borrow his game without being obvious about it. Bakugou knew that he had to be clever about it, so he got Kirishima on the topic of a fighting game that he really liked but no one would play with him. After hearing that, Kaminari had been all too willing to leave the console out when he didn't want it for his own dorm room. Sure, it meant that Bakugou was forced to struggle through Mortal Kombat, which it turned out that Kirishima was really fucking good at, but hey, he could stand to improve as well.

That Monday night, while Uraraka was cleaning her dishes from dinner, Bakugou strode into the kitchen and began to root through the fridge for something to drink. After pulling a bottle of water out, he turned around to lean back against the counter and considered his words. He didn't want to sound like he was going out of his way to spend more time with her. He just wanted to keep this game going. What other embarrassing things could he make up as bets? She was so amusing when she was flustered.

"You willing to get your ass handed to you tonight?" Bakugou piped up.

Uraraka paused and turned to look back at him. "Oh no, tonight, I'm doing all the ass handing."

Bakugou snorted and shook his head, as Uraraka began to sputter incoherently over what she'd said. He walked out of the kitchen and left her to suffer, feeling quite pleased with himself. That spark in her was something very interesting. So many people saw her as this good, sweet girl, but she was feisty as hell and always ready to put up a fight. For however much she smiled, giggled, and blushed, she was equally willing to take someone down. She'd come a long way from their first year, but then again, a lot of them had. Even he could admit that.

This time, Bakugou stayed in the common area flipping through his homework from Present Mic while Uraraka retreated to the dorms with Asui and Yaoyorozu. He was so focused on his paper and textbooks that he didn't notice when she crept back to the room. Not until she leaped over the couch effortlessly and released her quirk so that she could plop down next to him did he realize she was back.

"You ready?" she asked brightly.

Setting his schoolwork aside, Bakugou got up and switched out the video games. "You have to ask?" As it started up, he picked up one controller and handed her the other and then sat down focusing on her. "So what's the bet this time?"

"I figured we could do some small ones and then a big one?" Uraraka suggested. It made sense. That way each round they had something on the line that they could follow through tonight and then a big one and the end that would really kick them into high gear. If there were stakes on everything, then they'd both go at it harder. He nodded his head in agreement. "My big one is the same as last night."

Buying Todoroki's lunch. Bakugou harrumphed. "Not letting that one go?" She beamed at him and shook her head. Little shit. She wasn't so innocent as she looked. "Okay, what about a small one then?"

Uraraka considered it for a moment, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "You have to tell me an embarrassing story from your childhood."

Damn, she was really getting into this. Bakugou didn't like talking about his childhood with anyone, least of all embarrassing stories. As far as he was concerned, he'd never been embarrassed in his life, but then that wasn't exactly true. It wasn't like he'd had a bad childhood - on the contrary, he knew it had been a good one - but he just didn't do personal. He didn't talk about his past or his family or anything like that because it wasn't anyone's business. Only the future mattered.

However, if she really wanted to embarrass him, then she would've been wary about him doing the same thing. Already she had suffered once. He could see her bracing herself for the worst. He couldn't make a bet like hers since he knew that she'd divulge basically anything about her past. She was an open book. There were plenty of stories that she'd be willing to share with him, as she shared herself with anyone she remotely liked or respected.

No, if she was going to strike him where it hit him the most, he had to do the same thing, but there was only one thing he could think of and it came out before he could properly think it thorugh.

"If I win," Bakugou said, looking her in the eyes, "you've gotta take your shirt off."

Uraraka blushed so red that he thought she might actually explode. "Bakugou! I'm not doing that!"

"What?" Bakugou countered, but inside was panicking. Why had he said that? No, no, that was stupid. He shouldn't have said it. God, he sounded like such a creep. Still, he kept a straight face as much as he could. This would push her. She'd work harder. And if she really got upset, he wouldn't force her to do anything. He wasn't that cruel. "You're wearing a training bra from the gym. It's not like I've never seen a girl like that before. Besides, I've seen you in a swimsuit. What's the difference?"

He knew that Uraraka was shy, especially when it came to her body. He didn't know why, seeing as how even he could admit that she looked good in her tight hero costume. Sure, he might be totally focused on becoming a hero and had no interest in letting his hormones get the better of him like some of the guys, but he was still a teenage boy. He had eyes and half a brain. Maybe she wasn't skinny or had the perfect curves, but she wasn't ugly. The girl was just insecure.

Still, he probably should've thought this through.

"I...I don't…" Uraraka narrowed her eyes at him. "That sounds like something Mineta would bet."

"Hey, don't go comparing that little grape shit to me!" Bakugou barked. "It's not like I'm betting you to let me feel you up or some shit."

Biting her lip, Uraraka thought it over and then tersely nodding her head, though he noticed that she was refusing to meet his eyes. This must have been killing her. However, it did strengthen the fire in her and he knew that she was going to fight something fierce. "I'm using my big bet for the first round."

"Oh, so it's like that?"

"You're the one that had to go so low!"

"Scared?"

Uraraka didn't respond and he knew that she was. She anxiously picked at her t-shirt, as if she could convince it not to leave her, and turned her entire focus on the video game. Either the bet would help spur her forward to help her win or it would hinder her by causing a distraction. He didn't know what she was so worked up about. If the bet was the other way around, he'd take his shirt off without any complaints. He knew that he looked good. She just had to have that same confidence.

They started the first race and right away Bakugou noticed a change in Uraraka's intensity. She completely ignored the computer characters, gunning for him right off the bat. Any sort of advantage she got in one of the mystery boxes, she aimed it for him. It was frustrating as hell, seeing as how she sometimes even chose to just ram into him and sabotage them both if she got the chance, but she was relentless. It was great. The two of them got so into it that they both kept moving around on the couch in the direction of their characters, bumping shoulders half the time, not that either of them noticed.

When Uraraka came out as the victor with three wins against his two, she dropped the controller and jumped to her feet, doing some sort of weird victory dance. It was the dumbest thing that he had ever seen and he had seen Kaminari and Sero dancing and they were fucking awful. Still, it was hard to laugh at her when he realized that he'd lost her big bet. He groaned and fell back into the couch, already envisioning the humiliation that tomorrow would bring. Throwing the controller aside, he flexed his hands and let off a few tiny explosions as he tried to come up with some sort of excuse.

All he could think of though was how fucking terrible it was going to be when he was forced to buy Todoroki's lunch. How was he supposed to even go about that? God, if anyone said anything, he was going to blow them up. He could already picture Uraraka's uncontrollable laughter.

Indeed, the smug look on her face now was enough to send him into a fit of rage. He wanted to grab her and pin her down until it was wiped right off her face.

He couldn't do that though so he did the next best thing that he knew would fluster Uraraka and send her into another spiral of embarrassment. Snatching the hem of his black cut off shirt, he ripped it over his head and threw it at her. She let out a squeak and her eyes widened before it hit her in the face. When she pulled it away, her eyes landed on him and held up the shirt in front of her to hide her reaction.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Uraraka managed to stutter out.

Bakugou shrugged his shoulders. "Only fair."

It made little sense since he had been the one to bet her to take her shirt off should she lose, not the other way around, but he knew how much it would throw her off. If she was going to make him do shitty bets like buy Half and Half lunch for everyone to see, then he was going to play just as dirty. There was no way that she was going to be able to concentrate well enough to win now, not with the way she was fumbling now. He laughed to himself as she jerkily sat back down and tried to focus on the video game.

"So, um, have you, uh…?" Uraraka glanced at him quickly and then looked away again. Gods, she was such a mess. It was hilarious. He should've done this earlier if he'd known that it would throw her off her game so much. It wasn't like she'd never seen him shirtless before. They'd all gone to the U.A. pool as a class. "Have you come up with a big bet yet?"

He had to think of something that would maximize embarrassment, especially since he knew that he was going to suffer tomorrow. He didn't give a shit what people thought about him, but this one thing was going to cause a ripple effect for a while. He was tolerant of Todoroki when he had to be for school, but he was never nice on purpose. Buying Todoroki lunch was going to throw everyone for a loop and he would never hear the end of it. Kirishima wouldn't let him live it down. Either one of them was going to be on their deathbed and Kirishima would probably bring it up.

"You're going to the movies with everyone this week, right?" Bakugou said. That action movie was all Kirishima seemed capable of talking about outside of class - it was based off one of his favorite video games - and he'd managed to convince a group of people to go. He hadn't expected Uraraka to be one of them, but Ashido and Kaminari had cornered her and it had turned out it had one of her favorite actresses in it. Uraraka nodded, her brow knit thoughtfully. "If I win, you've gotta wear my shirt when we all go out."

A surprise expression appeared on Uraraka's face and the first thing she said was, "Can I at least wash it?" The response was so unexpected, for the both of them apparently, that Bakugou almost laughed. He waved a dismissive hand at her. She glanced down at the shirt. "You won't be...embarrassed? By me wearing it, I mean?"

"Why would I?" Bakugou asked. "You're gonna be the one who looks ridiculous."

Uraraka made a face that said she agreed with him. The shirt was too big for her. No doubt she would have wanted to dress up cute, but instead she would look like she was wearing a blanket. It would no doubt embarrass her, but she didn't seem to mind it as much as she had his other two bets. Still, he knew that it was because she wasn't thinking about it as much yet. This wasn't a bet that she could just get over with and be done. When it came to it, she'd buckle and start feeling self-conscious. She really needed to get over that.

When they started the next round, Bakugou saw the difference in Uraraka. She was distracted and kept messing up, even feeling nauseous every now and then as their characters went on windy roads and spun around after being hit by shells or bananas. He beat her almost effortlessly, a stark difference from their first round. By the time they finished, he'd won the first four games, the fifth one unnecessary to even play. She was clearly frustrated with herself, huffing in irritation and dropping the controller once she was finished with.

"You're an ass," Uraraka told him decisively.

Bakugou gave her his smuggest expression, which in reality was one of his more common looks. "You wouldn't want me any other way."

"I'm not so sure about that," Uraraka responded, eyeing him with a hint of irritation. Then she seemed to notice that she was staring at him while he was shirtless sitting next to her and she jerked away from him. "It's okay though! Because tomorrow will be hilarious."

"Who's the ass now?" Bakugou countered.

Uraraka did some sort of happy, little wiggle, which made him scoff and shake his head. It was so dumb. Why was she like that? Tomorrow was not going to be hilarious, but Friday would be fun at least. As long as he kept that in mind, he'd be okay.

(No, he wasn't. He was going to make a complete fool out of himself and Kirishima was going to drag his ass. What the fuck had he gotten himself into? He hadn't thought that she'd actually win tonight.)

By the time Kaminari had realized that he'd left his console out in the common area, it was almost midnight. He had been trying to finish one of his papers very last minute when he came to the conclusion that a break was very much needed if he was going to get it finished. Doing a paper all at once sounded like a terrible idea. He needed something to break it up or his brain would be as fried as if he'd let off his quirk all at once. No can do.

Except when he went to grab his controller, he realized that it wasn't in his room and, oh yeah, Kirishima had wanted to play Mortal Kombat with Bakugou earlier tonight. It had been all too entertaining to watch Bakugou actually get beat and nearly rage quit about five times. Some men just want to watch their friends get trounced for once, you know?

It was late, but no one would question him if they saw him out of his dorm, so he put on some slippers and started for the common area. He had not expected to hear the sounds of a video game being played, specifically Mario Kart. That game was reserved for Thursday nights. Besides, who was out there secretly playing Mario Kart in the middle of the night while everyone was in bed? No one had mentioned it to him.

Was it Sero trying to improve so that he'd eventually take first place? Maybe Midoriya, who tried to get better at everything? Hell, he'd even consider Todoroki, who tended to shy away from playing, possibly because he didn't seem to know how video games worked, as if he'd never played one in his life.

What Kaminari definitely hadn't been expecting to see playing Mario Kart were Bakugou and Uraraka, who he knew for a fact had not played with them once and chose to only watch. The race on the screen had just finished with apparently Uraraka as the winner as she jumped from the couch to do the most ridiculous and cutest dance Kaminari had ever seen while Bakugou sat glowering on the couch.

But what Kaminari _really_ didn't expect to see was Bakugou ripping his shirt off and throwing it in Uraraka's face.

Kaminari's brain short-circuited. What the fuck was he seeing? What was going on? Were they playing some sort of strip Mario Kart while everyone was sleeping? Also, why were Bakugou and Uraraka hanging out? Did it have something to do with Uraraka's random outburst in class last week about Bakugou becoming the number one hero? But that had nothing to do with stripping.

Why was Bakugou just sitting there shirtless while playing Mario Kart with Uraraka in a dark room?

You know, on second thought, Kaminari didn't really need that break to finish his paper. He didn't really want to play video games anyways. He was just going to walk back to his room, sit down, finish those last few paragraphs, and go to bed for the night. Yeah, that sounded like a great idea.

Why?

Because he fucking valued his life.

Kaminari was a lot of things. He knew that he wasn't the smartest tool in the shed or the brightest bulb in the box, but he could be clever and also do simple addition. One thing he did know was that interrupting whatever the hell was going on right now would end in only pain. Bakugou had kind of chilled since they're first year, but when he did explode, it was bad. It hadn't happened in a while and Kaminari did not want to be the cause or focus. And while he didn't know what was happening with Uraraka, he did know that Bakugou would potentially explode him out the building for getting in the middle of it.

But he was curious.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes:** I had been considering it before things were brought to my attention, but I rewrote a scene in the last chapter that was very cringe-worthy. When I came up with the idea of their last few bets, it was supposed to be a lot sillier, with Bakugou regretting the bet he made and acknowledging that he wouldn't make Uraraka actually do it. For some reason, I didn't do that when I wrote it? I was half asleep, but that's not an excuse. I'd already planned the events of this chapter, but that doesn't make up for it either. Anyways, thank you for still reading and also for telling me! I have literally not stopped thinking about it.

At any rate, I'd like to call this chapter: Bakugou Regrets Everything Pt. 1. Because our boy is about to suffer some humiliation for our benefit.

* * *

By the time lunch came around the next day, Bakugou had the insane feeling that he himself was going to blow up. His palms were so sweaty that if one person said the wrong word he was going to let start setting off explosions and even he wouldn't be able to tell if they were on accident or not. It had been a while since he had used his quirk on accident, having mastered control over things like that even before attending U.A., but as loathe as he was to admit it, that whole kidnapping with the League of Villains and the rest had thrown him off and he'd slipped up a few times while he was sleeping.

Bakugou was fully awake though and felt just as dangerous.

As he walked into the lunch room with Kirishima and Ashido, he swept his gaze around the room until he found the person he was looking for. Uraraka was sitting with, of course, Deku and Iida, her tray of food already sitting in front of her. How so much easier it would've been to buy her lunch. He didn't know why she couldn't have done that bet. His first one had been about him. But no, she'd gone to the heart of things. Buying Todoroki's lunch was worse than buying Deku's and that was saying something. It was going to make Icy Hot suspicious as hell.

Bakugou stared Uraraka down until she finally moved her head, maybe feeling someone's eyes on her. The second they connected eyes, a huge smile appeared on her face. Some people might've said it was an innocent smile, but he knew it for what it truly was. That girl was secretly demonic. He'd known that she was competitive, but this was absolutely ridiculous.

Scowling back at her, Bakugou stomped his way through the cafeteria until he found Todoroki, who was picking his lunch with all the interest of someone staring at paint drying. Why was he like that? Would it kill him to show emotion when he wasn't in the middle of a fight for his life? It was so frustrating, if only because it was hard to get a read on him in any situation or figure out how he might react. Bakugou knew how he would react if Todoroki had bought his lunch. He would light it on fire immediately.

Wow, he was really starting to regret helping Uraraka get better at Mario Kart and deal with her motion sickness.

The only way Bakugou was going to get through this was by doing it fast and making a clean getaway. Screw eating lunch today. He was not staying around for this shit show. Standing in front of the section with drinks, he acted like he was indecisive when he was really peering at Todoroki to figure out the best time to strike. Sure, it kind of made him look like a creeper - which one glance back at Uraraka giggling into her hand uncontrollably showed him - but it was all he had. He didn't want to be around Todoroki any longer than necessary.

When Todoroki was second in line to pay, Bakugou tore away from the drinks and barrelled his way through the crowd towards him. Every inch of his mind was screaming at him to turn around - fuck this shit, he was out, he was not fucking doing this - but then he knew what would happen. Uraraka would tease him endlessly for chickening out. She might not even play with him anymore or do his bet if he didn't do hers. She would think he was such a coward and Katsuki Bakugou was not a coward.

This was just so stupid.

Right as Todoroki was reaching for his wallet, Bakugou knocked him to the side, shoved a handful of money at the woman behind the counter, and barked, "I got it." The woman looked taken aback by his sudden intrusion or maybe even the furious look on Bakugou's face, which didn't match what he was doing, but she took the money anyways and gave him back his change.

Meanwhile, Todoroki was gawking at him like Bakugou had grown two extra heads, his mismatched eyes wider than Bakugou had ever seen him and his mouth parted wide enough for a frog to jump in it. He was totally frozen on the spot, along with Kaminari, neither of whom seemed to know what to do.

"Shut your fucking trap," Bakugou snapped. "You look like a dumbass."

Todoroki would choose now of all times to show emotions, except he only capable of utter confusion right now. "You… Why would you buy my lunch?"

"I don't have to tell you shit!" Bakugou yelled before storming away.

So many eyes were on him and he did not give a shit. Kirishima was bursting out into laughter even as he tried to reach out to stop Bakugou, but he shrugged the red hair boy's hand away and kicked the doors open so that he could leave the room. By the time the doors shut, his face was bright red and he had to let off a handful of mini explosions so that he wouldn't completely erupt, causing more than a few students to step further away from him in wariness.

What the fuck? What the fuck? Bakugou could barely breathe. Why had he agreed to do that? Was this how Uraraka had felt the other day in class? No, this was way worse. It had felt like the entire school was in there. He hadn't even had the chance to see Uraraka's reaction. All he could think about was getting out of there as fast as possible or someone would've been forced to go to Recovery Girl's office. Holy fuck, he'd looked like he bought Todoroki's lunch like he had some sort of deranged crush and was then too embarrassed to talk about it.

Bakugou clenched his hands into fists hard enough for his nails to dig painfully into the palms of his hands and he let out of a furious growl. Uraraka was going to _pay_ for this.

The next two days were spent glaring at Uraraka so heatedly that there seemed to be a permanent blush set on her cheeks, mostly because he looked anywhere else besides her or Aizawa, all he got were weird looks. Everyone in their class still seemed to be reeling from the fact that Bakugou had bought Todoroki's lunch the other day. Every time someone tried to ask him something, he would shut them down with either a scowl or a variety of two word comments that ended in "off".

Because things were such a mess by Thursday still since Bakugou had refused to explain anything, he had decided to skip Mario Kart Party Night and stayed in his bedroom to do homework. Whatever. He didn't know those idiots. It would be better to focus on his homework anyways.

Especially since he heard a knock on his door and Kirishima call out, "Sure you don't want to challenge your boyfriend tonight?"

"Piss off!" Bakugou roared back, falling back to his usual reply. He heard Kirishima and Sero cackling and then the two of them walked away to the common room. If Uraraka questioned his absence, it was all her fault. There was no way he was going to subject himself to that. Besides perhaps Kirishima, he had a feeling they would mostly be over it by tomorrow, so that the movies would be too much of a big deal. That one was never going to let him live it down.

By the time their usual time of playing came around, Bakugou sat in his room and wondered if he should go out there. A part of him was kind of mad at her, even though he had been the one to agree to the bet, and she had only used her big bet because he'd made such an absurd one. His face still threatened to turn pink when he thought about how he'd bet her to take her shirt off. What had he been thinking? He'd known it would embarrass her the most, but still, he shouldn't have said it.

They hadn't really talked since that night either. All they'd done was share a few glances, mostly him glaring at her and her giving him a look like he'd deserved the humiliation. What if she didn't want him out there?

Bakugou found himself walking to the common room area anyways. The game was on and Uraraka was sitting on the couch, but she wasn't playing. She was facing the tv, staring into it, but didn't seem to be watching, the colors on the screen washing over her like a rainbow. Taking a deep breath, Bakugou steeled himself and made his way over towards her. An introspective Uraraka felt just as dangerous as an angry one.

Only when he dropped onto the couch next to her did she stir and turned to face him, a small smile on her face. "I didn't know if you were going to come tonight." Her voice was far too soft. It was too _gentle_. He didn't like it. People did not talk to him like that. They knew that they had to be hard with him in order to get a decent response.

Bakugou shrugged his shoulders, his mouth feeling dry. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Still mad?" Uraraka asked, as if trying to gage how much trouble she was in for.

Clenching his hands at his side, Bakugou determinedly did not look at her as he said, "Look, the bet I made last night… It was fucking stupid, okay? It _was_ something that little grape shit would say." That was an apology, right? I mean, sure, he hadn't actually said the words _"I'm sorry,"_ but she knew that. Still, there were lines that he didn't cross and in the heat of the moment and his competitive spirit he had gone too far. "If you don't want to do the bet tomorrow, it's whatever."

A smile split across Uraraka's face. "Was that an apology?" Bakugou glowered at her. She laughed. "I'll admit that I was peeved about that one, but…" Jumping to her feet, she put her hands on her hips. "I lost that second one fair and square and I'm going to go through with it with pride." She sat down next to him, sideways on her legs, far closer than before, to the point where their knees were actually touching just barely. For some reason, his first reaction was to jump back, but he didn't move. "I appreciate it though. You know, Bakugou, you've really grown since our first year."

"Oh screw that," Bakugou ground out, looking away from her so he could snatch up the controller. "Don't get all mushy on me now."

"I wasn't planning on it," Uraraka told him as she did the same. "I plan on being merciless. Consider this payback for that low blow."

"I wouldn't have made you actually do it," Bakugou grumbled under his breath.

Uraraka seemed far too pleased with herself, as if she'd spent the past two days trying to come up with a bet that would make him so wholly uncomfortable that it would make him squirm for days. As long as her bets no longer included Todoroki or Deku, then he would be fine. He had a high tolerance for these things. But if she was trying to build some sort of rumor about him and Todoroki with these bets, he was going to demolish her. She could not possibly come up with anything more ridiculous than that.

"Okay." Uraraka picked the track this time. As she did so, he picked up the glass of water that she had set out and took a swing of it. "If I win, when we all go out tomorrow, you've got to hold to hold my hand and let me activate my quirk on you, so I get to drag you around like a balloon."

Bakugou choked on the water and nearly spewed it out. "What the hell is up with you and these outrageous bets?"

"You're the one that bet me to take my shirt off," Uraraka shot back.

"It was a mistake! I didn't mean it!"

Uraraka made the most unladylike snorting sound he'd ever heard in his life. "Oh, the great Katsuki Bakugou admits that he makes mistakes?" For some reason, her saying his entire name, even if it was in a sarcastic tone (maybe especially since it was in a sarcastic tone), had his brain short-circuiting for a second like he was Kaminari or something. "Seeing you float like balloon will be hilarious. I bet you'll pout the entire time."

"I will not," Bakugou snapped.

"Or you'll scowl, like this." Uraraka did her best to imitate his scowl, which...wasn't half bad if he was being honest. It looked a little strange on her what with her angel face and all, but it was better than Kirishima's. And she wasn't wrong either. He probably would scowl the entire time. The idea of having to rely on anyone to get anywhere made him uncomfortable. He could propel himself around with his quirk, but with hers on him, who knew if he'd be able to control himself right away and they'd be out in public.

Just them holding hands out in public with him floating behind her like some sort of fucking cherub or some shit.

"How long?" Bakugou asked.

"Is five minutes too long?"

 _Not long enough-_

Wait. Where had that come from? It was definitely long enough. Five minutes of holding hands with her around their classmates sounded like a terrible idea. How were they going to explain that one? Well, it was probably easier than him buying Todoroki lunch. (No, he wasn't going to let that go. Icy Hot and Deku kept giving him the weirdest of looks.) Besides, they didn't have to explain shit. Neither one of them had answered any of the questions lobbed at them for their sudden weird behavior. It wasn't anyone else's business that Bakugou and Uraraka were involved in a high stakes Mario Kart game.

"Yeah, whatever, that's fine." Bakugou reached over to press the x button on Uraraka's controller to start the race. "Let's play."

"What about your bet?" Uraraka asked.

The race started before he could answer and he blew past her immediately. "You can pay for my movie ticket."

He said it without really thinking about it and he was so focused that he didn't catch the startled look on Uraraka's face. The bet itself didn't really matter right now, not when he was busy trying to focus on this damn race and not think about what it would feel like to glide through the air like a cloud. That sounded fucking ridiculous. He hated it. He wasn't about to do that bet; he had to win.

So naturally, because the universe was a tricky bastard, he lost.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes:** I need the fluff. I need it so bad. Today's episode killed my soul, so I'm actually posting this from the afterlife.

* * *

Bakugou hadn't originally planned on going to the movies with everyone when there were so many better things he could do, but Kirishima had kept pestering him and he'd caved. It would be good to get off campus anyways and sometimes mindless action and explosions soothed him. He could listen to those sounds on repeat and go to sleep. The more CGI explosions irritated him, but he could get over it. The fact that his and Uraraka's bets had managed to worm their way into the night made things both better and worse.

As expected, Bakugou was not looking forward to being dragged around by Uraraka like a balloon. She had given him the option of choosing when he wanted to follow up on the bet, as he had done her with the first one, but it hung over him like a dark cloud. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, turning it into a knot, and he hated that feeling. What did he have to be nervous about anyways?

The only thing that kept him from falling into a foul mood was that Uraraka also had her own bet to hold up and, unlike his bet, hers would last the entire night. There would be no getting it over with. The entire night, she'd have to wear his shirt and deal with the weird looks and questions lobbed at her by their classmates.

Bakugou was sitting in the common room with Kirishima, Sero, and Kaminari, waiting on the girls, when they heard Iida exclaim, "Uraraka, you look so…!"

"Badass!" Jirou supplied.

"Hot!" Ashido added giddily.

And then there was Deku's puzzled description: "Like Kacchan?"

All the boy whipped their heads around, but the voices were coming from the hallway in the direction of the dorms, so they couldn't see anything. This was...not the response that Bakugou had been expecting when he had made the bet. This didn't sound embarrassing at all.

"Are you saying I dress like Bakugou?" Jirou demanded. "Because some of those clothes are mine and I'm really digging this look."

"N-no!" Deku exclaimed. "I'm just saying… That looks like one of Kacchan's shirts…"

The five students made their way into the room, but of course Ashido was blocking Bakugou's view of Uraraka. The pink girl was standing right in front of Uraraka, so that he could only catch glimpses of her bare arms. He moved around on the couch, trying to get a better view, which meant shoving Kaminari to the side, but then Jirou was standing next to Uraraka.

"Oh, uh, I just wanted to try a new look, you know?" Uraraka explained nervously.

Jirou nodded her head. "Yeah, she asked if she could borrow some of my stuff."

"We could all stand to try new things once in a while," Ashido said. "Maybe I _should_ dye my hair blue!"

"Aren't you bright enough?" Kirishima asked from the couch.

His question stirred the group of people standing in the mouth of the hallway and they all scattered. Bakugou didn't notice any of them, his eyes fixed on Uraraka. His heart stammered in his chest and he felt as if someone had punched him in the gut.

She was wearing his black cut off shirt, which was indeed too big for her, but she'd tied it to the side at the bottom to shorten it so that it was more like a crop top than a blanket, showing off a bit of her stomach. It managed to still show off a hint of her curves. A blue sports bra showed on the sides, something inevitable in a cut off shirt, but she had managed to make it look casual and match the blue logo on the shirt. Her black pants were tight, but they were clearly her own as Jirou's legs were skinny for them to share pants. The black boots and black wristbands were definitely Jirou's. Her hair was tied up in the back in a small ponytail, but her signature bangs still framed her face. Her makeup might have been edgier than normal, but it was minimal and still showed off her pink cheeks.

All in all, when Bakugou had made the bet, he had not been expecting this. How had she managed to make his huge workout shirt look like it was the centerpiece of a cool outfit? What the hell? When he finally caught eyes with her, her whole face turned pink, but she gave him a little smile that just pissed him off. This hadn't worked out at all. In fact, he was starting to think that this was going to turn back to bite him in the ass instead of her.

"You know, that _does_ look like one of Bakugou's shirts," Kirishima mused as he stood up. His eyes flickered down to Bakugou, who had managed to tear his gaze away from Uraraka to look up at him at the same time. "I'm pretty sure you wore that last week."

"Yeah, when we were playing Mario Kart!" Kaminari burst in, sounding oddly erratic. Both Bakugou and Kirishima shot him looks, a glare and a raised eyebrow respectively, but Kaminari shrugged his shoulders and then slunk off towards the girls. Well, that was strange, but then Bakugou never questioned the weird behavior of his friends. Maybe he pushed himself too hard in their hero class today and his brain was still a little fried.

Kirishima bounded towards the door with the manic excitement of a child. "You all ready for a bomb ass movie?"

Everyone going followed him out the door. Bakugou didn't bother waiting for Uraraka, who was saying goodbye to Iida and Deku, both of whom were staying behind for whatever reasons. Even better Todoroki wasn't going. The Half and Half Bastard was off with Aizawa for some project outside of class. Thank _everything_. It was pretty much the regular group of people that Bakugou hung out with all the time, the only additions being Uraraka, Hagukara, and Mineta. It would've been great if that little grape shit wasn't coming, especially with the way he was eyeing Uraraka right now, but Bakugou would ignore him the entire night.

Bakugou couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't lose his shit if Mineta said anything weird to Uraraka though. He was still reeling from his own stupidity. Uraraka didn't need to deal with that twice.

Somehow, it had been decided without him that they were going to stop at a fast food place to get something to eat before the movie. So far, he and Uraraka hadn't interacted much beyond a few sideways glances and grins on her face that made his stomach twist even further. He had to own up to his end of the bet at some point. Would it be better to do it before the movie so that the movie would distract them or after so that he could avoid any talking about it?

He was munching viciously on a burger at a table with Kirishima and Sero, considering his options, when Sero waved a hand in front of his face. "Earth to Bakugou?"

It jerked Bakugou out of picturing the best case scenario and he snapped to attention, his red eyes darting to the two other boys. "What?"

"We asked you about what you think Todoroki is doing with Aizawa like three times and you didn't even blink," Sero told him. Bakugou hadn't heard them at all, his mind too distracted. He was starting to squirm in his head and he didn't want it translating to his body. "It's not like you to be space-brained."

A sneaky grin wound its way onto Kirishima's face. "Oh, we're not important, not when Bakugou is having a teenage existential crisis."

"What the fuck are you going on about?" Bakugou snapped, not liking the look on Kirishima's face or the direction he was going. He didn't like whatever Kirishima was suggesting. Bakugou didn't have an teenage existential crisis. He wasn't like any of these idiots. This was just a stepping stone to his future.

"Well, first, you buy Todoroki's lunch and now Uraraka's wearing your shirt," Kirishima announced, like it made perfect sense. "I think our boy here is _torn_ between two crushes."

Bakugou almost exploded and it took every ounce of strength in him to not jump over the table and let out an explosion right in the redhead's face. "I don't have a fucking crush on that stupid Half and Half Bastard!" He knew that he was red in the face and he hated it, but it was out of anger. The second he'd bought Todoroki's lunch, he had known that people would come up with wild conclusions. Maybe they would mistake his aggression towards Todoroki as a way to hide his embarrassment.

With one simple bet, Uraraka had ruined him in the eyes of everyone for at least a month. He didn't care what people said about him, but now they thought he was some shy guy around his crush. It was shit. He never should have made that stupid bet with Uraraka that spurred her to victory. Bakugou had never believed in karma before, obvious from the way he acted, but now it was starting to sound true.

Done with his food, Bakugou got up and stomped his way to the bathroom, tossing his trash away. He ignored the looks from everyone, including Uraraka, and stormed inside. Shit, he had to cool down. Kirishima was only teasing him and Bakugou was letting it get to him. He knew that he had a quick temper, but he could control himself a lot better these days. He shouldn't have been that easy to set off like a bomb. He didn't want to think about any of this; he didn't want to do anything.

He could just...close his eyes and float.

Outside, he could hear the signs of everyone packing up and leaving since the movie would be starting soon and Ashido had a thing about movie trailers. It was now or never. He needed to get this over with. Maybe it would at least get Kirishima to let go of the whole Todoroki thing for a while.

After taking a deep breath, Bakugou kicked the bathroom door open and unceremoniously shouted, "Uraraka, give me your fucking hand!"

Uraraka literally jumped, so startled by the shout, and began to float towards the ceiling. She wasn't the only one to react in shock either. Ashido let out a surprised squeak while Kaminari choked on his last mouthful of food and began to cough in earnest. Jirou raised both her eyebrows and Sero's mouth fell open. The worst of them was, of course, Kirishima, who began to cackle wildly.

He stomped over to her as she scrambled to get back to the ground, pushing off the ceiling and flipping around so that she was feet first again before releasing her quirk. When he thrust out of his hands to her, she looked at it like it might somehow bite her, so he shook it in insistence. It was a quick walk to the theater. She could release her quirk on him when they got there and then the movie would start so that no one could ask any questions about why he was letting Uraraka hold his hand. It made sense.

Closing his eyes and trusting her to not let him float into the stratosphere, Bakugou almost jerked when he felt Uraraka grab his hand. Her hands were soft with the exception of the pads on her fingertips. There was a calloused almost rubbery feel to them, but they were more unexpected than unpleasant. The sudden shift in his gravity took him off guard at first and he tightened his grip on her hand, but then his feet slowly lifted from the ground until he was hanging in the air like a half-deflated balloon.

When Bakugou opened his eyes, he found himself staring directly into Uraraka's. The smile on her face now was neither sneaky nor smug, which made him narrow his eyes in suspicion. She actually giggled at his begrudging attitude and practically skipped out of the restaurant, effortlessly tugging him behind her. He didn't dare look at anyone else, not when he knew full well that he looked like a total idiot, and simply turned his gaze away to glare at every car that passed them by.

"You're doing the face," Uraraka told him in a low voice only meant for him. He jerked his eyes back to her. "The scowly face - except you're blushing."

Bakugou did not fucking blush. But when she gave him one of those _I win_ looks, he reached out with his free hand to grab at her. He missed her and she let out a laugh that was almost as light as him right now. Her quirk had to be what was causing his stomach to do flips now. He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose, willing himself to calm down, and just...focused on the sensation.

In a way, he felt free. He couldn't describe it any other way. There was nothing physically holding him down. His weight didn't matter. It made it easier to drain his mind of any thoughts and in a minute or two nothing felt like it mattered. There was simply nothing holding him back. The only thing tethering him to earth and reality was Uraraka's hand in his, smooth palms and rough pads compared to his tough and scarred ones. Even if he didn't create explosions with his palms, he was certain that he wouldn't have hands as soft as hers. He didn't have it in him to be that sort of gentle.

Being connected to her like that, her keeping him connected to earth, made it feel like she was the only thing that mattered. One push and he'd be gone. It brought a wave of discomfort over him, one that he'd never felt before. He had never let anyone have that much power over him. This was supposed to be some stupid bet to embarrass him. So why did it leave him feeling so vulnerable?

"We're here!" Uraraka announced and he opened his eyes. After he shifted around in the air so that his feet were underneath him, she released her quirk and Bakugou dropped down to his feet. She spun around and grinned up at him, all cheer and sunshine, though her cheeks seemed pinker than they'd been when he'd closed his eyes. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Guess not," Bakugou muttered in a gruff voice, refusing to look at her after seeing how bright she was. It was like looking into the fucking sun, which was setting right now. Because he wasn't looking at her though, he caught sight of Kirishima, who was beaming proudly and giving him the thumbs up, and that just made things worse. He stomped into the movie theater, leaving Uraraka behind. He did not need this shit right now. All of this was giving Kirishima too much ammunition. He really needed to find something that would embarrass the hell out of Uraraka to get back at her.

He would've just bought his ticket and gone to find a seat, but Kirishima dragged him over to the snacks and forced him to look at them with him. "Didn't we just eat?"

Kirishima gasped. "We can't go to the movies without snacks!"

"They're overpriced," Bakugou told him flatly. He wasn't going to buy anything, but he stayed with Kirishima until he decided what to get. He took his sweet ass time so that by the time he finished it was only them two, Mineta, and Kaminari in the lobby while everyone else had gone inside. He walked in behind them, trying not to think about what it had felt like to not have to worry about anything. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark theater, but he froze when he realized what had happened.

Uraraka was sitting in the chair at the end of the group, chatting with Ashido. She looked like she was talking too much, which usually meant she was nervous, probably because the Alien Queen was the nosiest person on the planet. Bakugou very quickly realized what was going to happen and almost cursed Kirishima out on the spot. This had been deliberate. Mineta was all too eager to sit next to Uraraka and Bakugou's mind went from _I don't give a shit_ to _I give precisely one shit_ in a flash.

Shoving his way forward with all the grace of a bull, Bakugou snapped, "Move it," and barrelled his way into the aisle before Mineta could. The boy looked positively heartbroken, but that didn't affect Bakugou in the slightest and it didn't stop Kirishima from following behind him and shrugging his shoulders goodnaturedly. Before they sat down, Bakugou turned sharply on Kirishima. "You did this on purpose."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kirishima replied, the smirk on his face suggesting otherwise.

Bakugou dropped in the seat next to Uraraka, startling her into glancing back at him. Before she could say or ask him anything, he cut in with, "This is the best seat," and then folded his arms across his chest, signaling to her that he was not going to say anything else. Her expression was a little frazzled, but then she nodded her head and went back to talking with Ashido about one of the actresses in this movie. Kirishima nudged him with an elbow, but Bakugou didn't look over at him either.

He should've just let Mineta sit next to her. If he'd tried anything, Uraraka would've floated his ass to the ceiling and left him there for the rest of the movie. But once again he'd acted before he thought through it properly and he found himself in an awkward position. At least when the movie started everyone's attention switched to the large screen. Uraraka either didn't notice his discomfort or she was doing her best to ignore it, but he kept seeing her squirm in her seat out of the corner of his eyes.

Slowly, he began to relax in his seat and he could even halfway enjoy the movie, but then he caught sight of her hand resting on her leg and the urge to grab it again as he had before swept over him so furiously that he clenched his fists. It had to be because of her using her quirk on him. It had been interesting. Maybe they could apply their quirks together in class. He'd have to think it over. Yeah, it was definitely her quirk that was intriguing him.

Because why the hell would he just want to hold her hand?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes:** Well, after the depressing note that was the last chapter of my Villain Deku fic, I thought we could all use some fluff! Which means I'm embarrassing the hell out of everyone.

* * *

The movie had done its job in distracting everyone from the fact that Bakugou had allowed Uraraka to drag him around like a balloon that she'd won at a booth at a fair. Well, everyone except for Bakugou himself, who kept finding his eyes wandering to the pads on her fingertips during the walk back to UA. He'd never really noticed them before, but she had a habit of talking with her hands when she was really excited and it was like they kept flashing in his vision, dragging his attention to them and refusing to let him go.

God, maybe it would've been better if she'd let him float to space. Then he wouldn't have to deal with this shit, especially since he knew that the movie would only distract Kirishima for so long.

By the time they reached UA, Bakugou had worked himself up into a mental frenzy that was beginning to make his hands itch to do something. Usually that something entailed letting off explosions, but for some reason, he couldn't settle on anything. He'd kept his distance from Uraraka, making sure that there was always someone in between them, but it felt like either too much or not enough.

He stormed past everyone to his dorm, ignoring calls from Sero and Kirishima and definitely ignoring the odd looks from Uraraka. He was so busy thinking furious thoughts towards all of them that he crashed right into Todoroki, who took a few steps back to balance himself. "Get out of my way!" Bakugou snapped, brushing past him to get to his room.

Kirishima might have shouted, "That's no way to treat your crush!" but Bakugou slammed his door shut and locked himself in his bedroom. He finally let off a few explosions to get rid of the excess sweat on his hands and frustration pent up in his chest and then collapsed in his bed face first.

Tonight had been an unmitigated disaster.

Uraraka's bet had really done a number on him. She was so much better at this game than he was. How had she become so devious? He couldn't just let her win like this.

Bakugou rolled over and found himself staring at his full laundry basket. He'd been putting it off for a few days, but it was something he couldn't ignore anymore unless he wanted his room to start smelling. Besides, doing a few menial tasks would get his mind off things. He dragged himself to his feet and changed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, tossing what he'd taken off in with the rest of his laundry, and then gathered all the things he needed. No one would be spending their Friday night doing laundry. It would be as good as dead.

Of course he was wrong. The universe had decided that today would shit on him endlessly.

Midway through putting his laundry in the wash, Uraraka appeared, carrying an empty basket. She was still bloody wearing his shirt, but had taken off the boots and accessories and scrubbed her face clean of makeup. Somehow, seeing her like that, looking more like herself, made things so much worse. It was cute and it made him sick.

Her eyes lit up in surprise and a pleasant smile crossed her face. "There you are. I was looking for you."

Bakugou gave her a sideways look. "Why?"

"To give you your shirt back," Uraraka told him, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She set her basket down in front a dryer. "This is perfect timing since I'm here to get my laundry from earlier."

In retrospect, Bakugou should have known that something like this was going to happen to him. The universe was clearly trying to fuck him over today. He should have realized that it wasn't done with him. He should've stayed in his bedroom so that he wouldn't cross paths with anyone.

Uraraka smiled, more nervously than he anticipated, which made him really suspect, and she started to untie the shirt so that it hung loose on her like he'd originally pictured. "I'll just give it back to you now so you can wash it with the rest of your other stuff."

Bakugou didn't question it, merely grunting in response, until he realized what exactly that entailed. His eyes widened and snapped in her direction just as she grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt and began to pull it over her head. He let out a strangled shout of "Uraraka!" and jumped forward to jerk the shirt back down. He caught a glimpse of the rest of her stomach that the shirt had hid, the creamy unmarred skin, and more of her sports bra before she flung the shirt in his face, blocking his sight. It was kind of a good thing, seeing as how his face was so red that he thought he might blow up.

She giggled awkwardly and he heard the sound of a dryer opening. "You can look now."

Honestly, Bakugou didn't know whether to trust her or not, but when he pulled the shirt away, she was wearing a loose white t-shirt that wasn't quite thick enough to hide her dark bra. He knew that his face was still red and hers was pink, but he didn't look away from her face. He had a feeling that if he did, he would be admitting some sort of defeat. This was definitely a new evolution in their game. He didn't know what it meant, but he'd be damned if he lost.

"I'm not afraid," Uraraka told him fiercely, though her tone didn't match the nervous look on her face. "I can take whatever you throw at me."

"I know that," Bakugou replied, much softer than he'd planned, maybe softer than he'd ever spoken. It caught him off guard and her as well, judging by the faintly surprised look that brightened her whole face up. He did not need that look directed at him, not with the way it made him feel light again. He needed to fix this somehow. "You better be ready the next time we play."

"Always."

Turning away from him, Uraraka pulled the rest of her laundry out of the dryer and he went back to finishing up his wash. It was only a few minutes, but as confused and irritated as he'd felt before, the silence wasn't awkward. He didn't mind her being here. She was done before him, activating her quirk on her laundry basket so that it floated in her hand. Such a cheap trick. He wasn't sure what it was like to have a quirk that could be used for such menial tasks. It had always been to fight, to destroy, to win. He'd never really tried.

Uraraka gave him one last look before she left, this one more unreadable than the others. It was so soft that the thought to touch the pink circles of her cheeks popped into his head. Fucking ridiculous. What was up with those anyways? They were stupid. "I had a really fun time tonight."

"That movie wasn't bad," Bakugou grumbled.

She laughed lightly. "No, it wasn't."

"You should hang out with us more often," Bakugou said without thinking. The idea of her being in his group was more appealing. She added something to it that he hadn't realized was missing. What that something was, he didn't know, but it was there. Then he realized what he'd said and quickly added, "We're a lot more fun than those nerds you usually hang out with."

Uraraka made that unlady-like snort again and shook her head, but she wasn't mad at him. He could see the way she was biting her lip to keep herself from laughing again, even if she was hiding her face from him. "Goodnight, Bakugou."

"Yeah, whatever, night."

When she left and he was alone with his thoughts and the rumbling of the washer under his hand, Bakugou had the unfortunate displeasure of thinking about the conversation. He was excited about playing that video game with her, but the promise to find a bet that would cause her undue humiliation didn't feel like the reason. It had to be though. He couldn't just want to hang out with her just because. That was impossible. It was the game. It had to be.

* * *

Kaminari was beginning to question whether or not there was some force out there that had it in for him. Had he done something particularly awful lately? He could've sworn that he'd been good. He was focusing more on his schoolwork than ever before and his training to become a pro hero. He'd even (mostly) stopped all his antics with Mineta.

Of course that had been upon realizing that it was giving him the exact opposite of what he wanted, so maybe the universe was trying to tell him that being good for selfish reasons wasn't exactly good.

Some sort of cosmic karma had to be the reason why he kept walking in at the worst times ever.

He wouldn't say that he had good timing unless it came to using his quirk. With his quirk, he had learned to time when to use it and in which ways. With everything else, well… It was a work in progress. Like how he had a bad habit of underestimating how much time he needed to finish his homework or how long it would take him to get ready or even just arriving to things on time that weren't class related. He stuck his foot in his mouth more than he would like and sometimes said the wrong things at the wrong time.

However, walking in on Bakugou and Uraraka while one of them was taking clothes off had to be like lightning striking in the same spot twice. It shouldn't be possible. This was absurd. Why was this happening to him?

Kaminari had been rooting through his room for his favorite pajama pants when he'd realized that he'd never taken his laundry out of the dryer last night. What a dunce move. He had other things he could wear, but he was set on those pants in particular, so he went down to the laundry room, fully expecting it to be empty. Who did chores like that on a Friday night?

As he opened the door, he heard what sounded like Bakugou shouting, "Uraraka!" in the most conflicted and shocked voice that Kaminari had ever heard out of him. Like Kaminari hadn't even thought Bakugou of being able to sound like that. It was like his voice was caught in his throat. Of course, when Kaminari's eyes landed on Uraraka after he stepped fully inside, he got the shock of his life and understood why Bakugou sounded the way he did.

She was taking her shirt off right in front of Bakugou.

Oh my god, Uraraka was taking her shirt off.

Granted, because it had been a large cutoff, it had been impossible to miss the blue sports bra that she'd been wearing underneath, but that didn't change anything for either boy apparently. Kaminari practically bolted out of the room right as Uraraka threw the shirt at Bakugou's face. No way was he going to stay in there. If he did, then Uraraka would know that he'd seen her shirtless and she would probably send him floating to space.

He felt like his head was going to explode and the image was now seared in his mind forever. She was _incredibly_ attractive. But they'd really come to be friends over the years. Yeah, Kaminari was part of Bakugou's group and she was a part of Midoriya's, but he liked being silly with Uraraka and everything always felt so light with her. She was always down for being goofy and her excitement was contagious.

Kaminari knew he could be an idiot, but he wasn't going to be a jerk.

Also, he was pretty sure that if Bakugou caught him looking at a shirtless Uraraka, he would explode Kaminari right to the fucking moon.

After all, Kaminari knew things that the others didn't. He had seen Bakugou take that shirt off the other night and throw it at Uraraka, just as she'd done to him now. The moment Uraraka had stepped out and Kaminari had seen her wearing the shirt, he had known that it was Bakugou's because he'd seen the other boy give it to her. He'd noticed the way Bakugou's eyes had followed Uraraka all night, like she was a magnet that kept pulling him towards her.

Not to mention the whole Bakugou Balloon thing, which Kaminari had thought he was hallucinating until Sero and Kirishima had flipped out over it. Plus, Kirishima and Mina conspiring so that Bakugou and Uraraka would sit next to each other during the movie.

Still, it felt like he was missing something. He knew more than everyone else, but he couldn't put the pieces together. Were they dating? They had to be secretly dating. But they weren't doing a good job at making it a secret seeing as how they were sharing clothes, holding hands, and throwing compliments in class. However, no one but Kaminari knew about them playing video games together after everyone had gone to bed. And where did Bakugou buying Todoroki lunch fit into all of this?

It didn't make sense. None of it did. Kaminari's brain hurt just thinking about it.

"Hi, Kaminari!"

He nearly jumped at the sound of Uraraka's voice, catching himself at the last second, and then looked down at her. He'd left the laundry room, but his brain had frozen him outside of the room as it had attempted to put together the puzzle that was Bakugou and Uraraka's relationship. She was finished with her laundry, the full basket floating in front of her as she kept a hand on it.

"That's convenient," was the first thing to pop out of Kaminari's mouth as he stared at the basket.

Uraraka gave him a sheepish smile. "It's kind of a cheap, lazy trick, isn't it though?"

"Nah, it's cool." Yes, stay calm, think about something as boring as laundry. Kaminari looked down at her and thank gods she was wearing a shirt. Of course he hadn't expected her to walk around without one on, but then he also hadn't anticipated her halfway stripping in front of Bakugou. That white shirt was probably a little more see through than she realized, but he was not about to point that out.

"Thanks again for inviting me to the movies with your group!" Uraraka told him, looking and sounding about as bright as the sun.

"Ha, yeah, of course, any time!" Kaminari replied, maybe with a little too much enthusiasm, but Uraraka didn't seem to notice or mind.

"Well, I've got to sort these out before bed," Uraraka said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See ya."

Wow, he'd survived. He hadn't said a word about seeing her shirtless, even though it was still very much on his mind. Bad. This was bad. He'd seen her in a swimsuit before. Why was this any different? Oh, man, Bakugou was going to kill him. Kaminari honestly didn't think he had it in him to keep quiet for much longer. He had to tell someone. Jirou? She was good at keeping secrets. Sero? He would refrain from saying anything if Kaminari asked. Definitely not Mina. She would tell everyone. And not Kirishima because he'd tease Bakugou so mercilessly over it and Bakugou would find out his source and then Kaminari would be dead.

"What the fuck are you doing just hanging outside the laundry room, Pikachu?"

This time, Kaminari did jump. Bakugou had come out of the laundry room while Kaminari had been thinking and had promptly zeroed in on him. "Uh, nothing! I mean, er, I need my pants. My pajama pants. In the dryer."

Bakugou narrowed his eyes suspiciously. For a second, Kaminari was certain that Bakugou knew that Kaminari had walked in on them and seen Uraraka in a less than appropriate state of dress, but then the other boy made a "tch" sound and walked away, uninterested in discussing Kaminari or his pajama pants any further. Kaminari didn't breathe out a sigh of relief until Bakugou was gone.

Man, that had been close.

* * *

Saturday was not a day of rest. There was never a day of rest, as far as Bakugou was concerned. He got up early and went to the training gym as he did every Saturday unless he was deathly ill. Besides, a hard workout was exactly what he needed. He'd been distracted lately and his mind was absolutely frazzled after last night, what with the whole holding hands thing, the shirt thing, and the every Uraraka thing. He couldn't afford to be distracted by anything, least of all a girl.

Maybe that was why he was doing so poorly in this game against her. What had started out as just playing Mario Kart had clearly evolved into something else and he needed to catch up. No way was he going to let Uraraka, Little Miss Round Face, get the best of him. A long and unforgiving session in the gym would get his head back into the game and he'd kill it. Uraraka wouldn't know what was coming.

Unfortunately Bakugou found that he wasn't the only one that had thought it was a good idea to get an early morning workout in. There, in one corner stretching, were the last people in his class that Bakugou wanted to see: Deku, Iida, and Todoroki. Of course they would be in here. Had he thought the universe had eased up on him because it was a new day?

Bakugou almost growled in frustration, but then hiked his gym bag further onto his shoulder and went to an area out of their way and sight. Luckily they hadn't seemed to notice him enter, lost in their own little conversation as it was. The gym was separated into areas so that he could train privately, but it was still frustrating when he was used to this time being his alone and he could still hear those idiots talking. And of course they had to be talking about the last thing Bakugou wanted to think about right now.

"That's what Hagakure told me," Deku was insisting, sounding positively flabbergasted. "They were _holding hands_."

Iida scoffed. "That's preposterous. Uraraka would never hold hands with Bakugou."

"And he let her use her quirk on him and pulled him around while he floated!"

"That sounds even more unrealistic," Iida said. "I think Hagakure is playing a prank on you."

"She also said that they sat together during the movie," Deku added. He sounded confused, maybe even conflicted, like he didn't know what to think. He was probably too nervous to actually ask Uraraka outright about it. "Do you think it could have been...a date?"

Bakugou snorted to himself. Not fucking likely. Deku sounded like his whole world had been turned upside down. It had probably looked like that to everyone else though, even if the most they'd done was hold hands for five minutes and then sit in silence next to each other at the theater. He bet that everyone thought that was how he did dates. Which he didn't. He didn't do dates at all. There was no time.

"Definitely not!" Iida exclaimed, sounding almost horrified. "Uraraka would have told us if she was going on a date with Bakugou!" There was a pause that bordered on almost uncomfortable. "Wouldn't she?"

"I hope that she knows that she can confide in us…" Deku said so quietly that Bakugou almost missed it. He had to get closer to the wall to hear. "Maybe she's embarrassed? But then I've never seen them hang out together unless we're all in a group."

"I can't see Uraraka...having a crush...on Bakugou," Iida managed, this time very uncomfortable. Of course he would find be uneasy about it. He'd probably never had a crush in his life. Bakugou bet that Iida wouldn't think it proper to have a crush while in high school or something ridiculous like that. Like you had to wait until you graduated and be mature enough to know you liked someone. "She's never shown any signs, as far as I know."

There was a thoughtful hum, which Bakugou recognized as Todoroki's. Only he was able to make a noise that sounded like things just barely mattered. "There was her outburst in class the other day about Bakugou becoming the number one hero…" The other two muttered in confusion over that. Bakugou allowed himself to smirk at little. At least their confusion was a little amusing. "I don't understand why Uraraka would holds hands with him though or why Bakugou would put himself in such a vulnerable position with her."

A flash of irritation streaked through Bakugou. He didn't like the fact that Todoroki was able to cleanly pick apart something like that. It almost made it feel like Todoroki understood him on a level that he wasn't comfortable with. Once you understood your opponent, it was easier to take them out. Not that Uraraka was a weakness or he was weak around her, but by letting her place that bet against him and then losing, he had put himself into a vulnerable position that he never would have before.

But then Deku had to say something so insanely awkward that Bakugou almost lost his cool. "Todoroki, you're not...erm… You're not jealous, are you?"

"Huh?"

"Wh-what I mean is- Well, you know! A-after lunch the other day!" Deku was starting to stammer and babble over his sentences to the point where Bakugou was having difficulty understanding him. Either that or he was so mad that the blood thumping in his ears was making it impossible. Had Deku really just asked Todoroki if he was jealous that Bakugou had held hands with Uraraka? He had to clench his hands to keep from letting off explosions, which would alert them to his presence across the gym.

"Why would I be jealous?" Todoroki asked, not getting it at all. "And of who? Uraraka or Bakugou?"

That just made Bakugou's head spin even further. He should be jealous of Bakugou! He was going to beat that stupid Half and Half Bastard at everything! He was going to be the better hero! He was going to grind that jackass into the dust! Besides, Todoroki wasn't the one that Uraraka was hanging out with twice a week. He was really missing out on that.

Shit, what did that thought even mean?

"Oh, nevermind!" Deku laughed anxiously. "You just sounded… Ha, sorry, I read into that way wrong. That was pretty ridiculous to ask."

"I think we've done an appropriate amount of stretching before our training session," Iida cut in, officially ending all talk outside of hero work. What a relief too because Bakugou had about had it. He didn't even want to be here right now. All thoughts of his workout had left him mind, leaving him with nothing but rage and discomfort. So much for coming here to clear his head. Now it would one big cloudy mess.

Bakugou shook his head. "C'mon, get it together. You've got work to do."

And he did. He had a lot of work to do if he was going to become number one. After finishing his own stretches, he pushed himself hard in his workout, forcing himself to think about the next step and how he could work on any more improvements. He always said that he was best so that he could make sure that he was. He was never going to have a moment of weakness again. He was never going to lose again.

That included at freaking Mario Kart.


	7. Chapter 7

That Monday night, Bakugou almost couldn't wait for everyone to leave the room before he put in Mario Kart and dragged Uraraka's ass to the couch. Tokoyami was taking his sweet time going to bed though, sitting in a chair and reading a book under a too dim lamp. Couldn't he do that in hs room? He'd been reading that same book for almost an hour. It couldn't possibly be that interesting.

Bakugou felt antsy, which was never a good thing for him, because it tended to make him come off short and rough around the edges. Uraraka was doing some homework on the coffee table, her back pressed up against the bottom of the couch, but they kept catching eyes and looking away. Every time they did, something seemed to pull tighter inside of Bakugou's chest until he felt like he might snap. How could Tokoyami not feel the tension in the air and become incredibly awkward? Was he that oblivious?

Finally, after what felt like an ridiculous amount of time (and why was Bakugou waiting so insistently?), Tokoyami let out a sigh and closed the book. He didn't even look pleased about what he'd read. The least he could've done was enjoy the damn book if he was going to cut into Bakugou and Uraraka's gaming time. He mumbled a good night as he switched off the lamp and then left for his dorm. Uraraka had gone to the kitchen minutes before and so Bakugou took the time by himself to get the game set up.

When Uraraka came back, she was holding two glasses of milk and a plate of cookies. Bakugou took one off the plate before she even set them down in front of them, shoving it halfway in his mouth and holding it there while he used both hands to set up the game the rest of the way.

She snorted. "Excuse me, who said these were for you too?"

Bakugou bit down on the cookie, chewed, and swallowed with the sort of viciousness meant for animals with food aggression issues. "You gonna eat all of them by yourself?"

"Maybe," Uraraka shot back.

"Be my guest if you want to get a stomach ache," Bakugou told her even as he took one of the glasses of milk and then gulped half of it down.

Uraraka rolled her eyes, but didn't fight him on it. They both knew that she had brought the cookies out for them to share. It was the first time that she'd made sure that they both had something. Usually she had a large glass of water just in case she felt nauseous and he just drank from hers.

"How about we just stick with some small bets tonight?" Uraraka asked.

"What? You scared?"

The smile Uraraka gave him was anything but scared. "Maybe I thought I'd go easy on you." Bakugou shot her an affronted look. Neither one of them liked it when people went easy on them. She'd just said that to rile him up and, with him as edgy as he was right now, it had worked. What a low blow. "I just figured that we've tortured each other enough for a bit - and Todoroki too." Her expression turned sheepish. "He doesn't seem bothered in the slightest, but my bet may have, uh, started some rumors."

"No shit," Bakugou grumbled.

"I just thought it would embarrass you," Uraraka insisted innocently. "I didn't think people would start to think that you had a crush on him." When Bakugou began to grit his teeth, she started to laugh. "It _is_ kinda funny though."

"It's not fucking funny at all," Bakugou snapped. "People think I'm a sap."

Uraraka shook her head. "No they don't. They think you have a heart." Before Bakugou could say anything about that - like he _did_ have a heart or he _didn't_ have one and he didn't care - she continued without noticing the way his mouth had opened and closed like a fish out of water. " _I_ know that, but you like to bury it underneath all that rage and pride."

Well, Bakugou didn't know what to say to that. He couldn't admit that she was right, but he didn't want to say that she was wrong either. It was hard enough for him to figure out on his own as it was. He could say that he did care about his friends almost as much as he cared about his goals, but that would definitely make him sound like some big softy.

Instead, Bakugou returned his attention back to the game. "Okay, small bets." This was somehow harder to think of because it couldn't be easy, but it couldn't be too awful either. " If I win, you have to join me on my run tomorrow morning."

A gasp slipped out of Uraraka's mouth. "Bakugou, I can't run as fast or long as you!"

"Tough shit," Bakugou replied. "You better not lose then or be prepared to puke your guts out."

Uraraka pursed her lips as she looked back at him in concentration. "If I win, you have to watch a chick flick."

"I don't watch chick flicks."

"Then you better not lose," Uraraka threw back.

Narrowing his eyes, Bakugou returned her stare and then started the game. They could hear the countdown on the screen, but neither one of them looked away from each other until the race began. These were relatively small bets compared to the high stakes of humiliation in their other ones, but Bakugou still felt the pressure not to lose. Not that he particularly wanted someone else to join him on his morning run, which he considered a sanctuary of sorts from all the idiocy that high school brought, but he knew how much she hated running. It'd be good for her. She could stand to improve her stamina in cardio.

So of course he fucking lost.

"Are you shitting me!" Bakugou jumped to his feet. "You're practicing without me, aren't you?" Uraraka giggled on the couch, throwing herself back into it so that her feet were in the air. "You better not be playing with Kaminari behind my back!"

That only made Uraraka laugh more. "What? Do you think I'm cheating?" She pushed herself up, wiping a few tears from her eyes, but the huge smile never left her face. "I promise you, Bakugou. You're the only one I'm playing video games with. No one else even knows that they gave me motion sickness."

It occurred to Bakugou that Uraraka hadn't gotten sick in the last few times they played. She barely seemed to get nauseous anymore, if she did at all. And yet they were still playing the game together. Neither one of them had said that this little thing would come to an end once she accomplished the goal she had been working hard on by herself. Having another person around helped distract her and he thought that she might be confident to start playing with everyone else during their Mario Kart parties on Thursdays. She hadn't though, choosing to continue only playing with him.

"Thank everything I won," Uraraka sighed, pulling her legs onto the couch to tuck underneath her. "I'm pretty sure running with you would have _killed_ me."

Bakugou eyed her as he sat back down. Whatever. He didn't mind losing. That meant his run was still his own. He didn't need her anymore in his life than she already was. Still, the prospect of watching some dumb chick flick sounded like a terrible consolation prize for his alone time. "So what are we gonna watch?"

Uraraka gave him a curious look, as if she hadn't really grasped the fact that they would be watching the movie together. He certainly wasn't going to watch it by himself. No way, no how. Besides, she would have to watch it with him if she wanted to see him squirm during the cheesy romantic parts and hear him complain about the bad writing. No doubt she would get a kick out of that.

"I'll figure something out," Uraraka said. Shaking his head, that feeling of the unknown threatening to swallow him again, even if it was over some stupid movie, Bakugou changed his racer and car, making a point of putting all his focus on the acceleration. It was going to be pedal to the metal all the way. "Okay, next bet, if I win, you have to provide the snacks and drinks for the movie."

"Pft, if I win, we have to watch the movie in your dorm," Bakugou countered, focused on the screen as it showed the course they were about to race on. He was not going to lose.

Blush washed over Uraraka's entire face all the way down her neck. "Bakugou! You can't just..."

"What?" Bakugou shot back. "I'm not watching it out here for anyone to see and I'm not watching it in my dorm either. If any of the guys hear some stupid chick flick playing in my room, I'll never heard the end of it. Kirishima likes them. He and Ashido have been trying to force me to watch one with them for ages."

"O-oh, okay." Uraraka swallowed, returning her attention back to the game as the countdown began.

He didn't know what she was so flustered about, but he wasn't going to complain. With her distracted, it would be it a cinch to win this time around. It appeared as if he'd made a much better choice with his car this time around, as it was obviously faster than Uraraka's. She was getting better about paying attention to stats and figuring out what worked better for her. In the beginning, she hadn't even known cars had stats; she just picked the one that looked the prettiest to her.

It wasn't enough to beat Bakugou this time around. She came in a measly third after the computer character behind her hit her with a red shell right before the finish line. She harrumphed in irritation, more at the computer than him, but she didn't look angry or disappointed. The stakes weren't super high this time around. She still had put up quite the effort, but Bakugou had been fucking on it that time around. He felt good and relieved, his ego slowly on the mend. Now all he had to do was keep this up for the next time.

"When do you want to watch the movie?" Uraraka asked.

"I don't care," Bakugou replied. "Tomorrow?"

"Okay." Uraraka's smile was strangely shy, but he didn't linger on it too much, still pleased that he had finally reclaimed his title as winner in the end. He couldn't let her win anymore. This was going to ruin his record. Not even watching some stupid chick flick was going to bring him down. This was a good night.

* * *

It took approximately thirty-eight hours before Kaminari exploded. He probably shouldn't have tried to keep this to himself for so long, seeing as how he ending up acting like one of Bakugou's explosions. Thankfully, only Jirou was in the room. He just couldn't take it anymore. Honestly, he didn't know how he had managed to stay quiet for this long, but he couldn't do it. He had to say something. Jirou was his best option. He could trust her.

At first, Kaminari thought that just maybe he could keep it together. Then he had glimpsed Bakugou, Uraraka, and Tokoyami in the common area the night before when he had gone to get some water. The tension had been so thick in the room that he wasn't sure how Tokoyami wasn't choking on it. Kaminari had never chugged something so fast in his life and then he booked it to his dorm.

Then today in the middle of the school day he had walked past them talking to one another, all casual-like, outside of their classroom in between classes. Bakugou had his backpack slung over one shoulder, dangling by the loosest strap possible, and was leaning against the wall with his other shoulder as he stared down at her with so much heat in his red eyes that it was a shock she wasn't melting. Meanwhile, Uraraka had her hands folded together behind her back, staring up at him with a faint grin on her face, like she was challenging him.

Kaminari had no clue what they were talking about, only catching Uraraka in the middle of a question, "-nine work for you?" That sounded suspiciously like a date, which made Kaminari's head spin and he ducked into the classroom where, by some incredible miracle, Jirou was the only one sitting at her desk with earbuds in.

Jirou almost rocketed out of her seat when Kaminari launched himself at her and slammed his hands on her desk. "What the hell!" She jerked her earbuds out and glared at him. "You scared the shit out of me!"

"I need to tell you something and I need to tell you now before anyone comes into this classroom or I might physically die," Kaminari rattled off in one breath. His eyes were wide and his heart was beating so fast that he felt like he might get sick.

The most startled expression had crossed Jirou's face, but she didn't immediately shove him away either despite being in her personal space. She replaced it with a cool, uninterested look, but she couldn't pull it off as well as Todoroki. "Okay, okay, calm down. Breathe."

Kaminari did as he was told, taking a deep breath, and then spitting everything out as hastily as he could, "I don't know what's going on between them, but I caught Uraraka and Bakugou playing Mario Kart by themselves a few weeks ago after we all went to bed and they keep taking their clothes off!"

"What?" Jirou almost choked on the word.

Wait, no, that wasn't the right way to word it. "I mean-" Kaminari shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts together. "Bakugou took his shirt off and gave it to her."

A light went off in Jirou's head and she straightened up in her seat. "So the shirt she wore to the movies _was_ Bakugou's!"

"Exactly!" Kaminari grinned, relieved that either Jirou was able to understand him or he was starting to make sense. It was probably the former, if he was being honest. "And then last night, I guess they were doing laundry together and she took it off and gave it back to him."

Jirou arched an eyebrow. "You saw Uraraka take her shirt off?"

Blush flooded Kaminari's cheeks. "I left the room as soon as I saw what was happening!" He straightened up and put a hand on his heart, attempting to wear a serious expression even with his red face. "I'm a gentleman." Jirou snorted in disbelief and he dropped his hand to glower at her. He had been a gentleman! After all, as soon as he had realized what Uraraka was doing, he had left the room, unlike Bakugou. "And I just heard them talking about doing something at nine."

"You mean like a date?" Jirou asked, leaning in closer.

Kaminari pressed his hands on her desk and leaned down to meet her halfway. "You saw them when we all went to the movies last week. He asked to hold her hand" - well, he had shouted at her to give him her hand - "and she floated him like a balloon. Did you see the look on his face?"

"Yeah, he almost looked…"

"Peaceful," they said at the same time, their eyes locking.

Jirou sunk back in her seat. "Oh my god. It makes perfect sense and then… It doesn't." She scratched the back of her head as her earjacks swung around, somehow showing that she was confused. "Since when are Bakugou and Uraraka even friends? I mean, Bakugou would've said something to us, right?"

"Maybe he's embarrassed?" Kaminari mused as he sat down in the seat in front of Jirou's desk. "I mean, she is a part of Midoriya's crew, after all."

"I don't know, but-" At that exact moment, the classroom door opened and other people began to spill inside. Jirou snapped her mouth shut and leaned in a conspiratory manner that pulled Kaminari closer. They glanced at Bakugou, who strode in sans Uraraka, and watched as he dropped into his seat without acting like anything weird was going on. A little while after, she came in with Midoriya and Asui. Jirou pulled Kaminari's attention back to her. "You said something about them doing something at nine?"

Kaminari frowned. "Yeah…"

A grin spread across Jirou's face. "How do you feel about spies?"

"That I'd want to be the super suave spy, but I'd probably be more like the goofy sidekick."

"Well, want to be mine?" Jirou asked.

Oh. OH. Kaminari grinned back at her. This could be very good. It could also end very badly, but Kaminari was willing to take that bet with Jirou at his side. At least he wouldn't take the brunt of Bakugou's wrath alone when Bakugou found out that someone was on to his little secret rendezvous with Uraraka. Kaminari sank back in his seat, nodding at her. Jirou had been the perfect person to tell. She twirled one of her earjacks, a smug expression on her face.

Tonight was going to be one for the books.

* * *

When Bakugou had made the bet to watch the movie in Uraraka's dorm room, he hadn't really considered the actual action of going to her room. It wasn't like he could walk to it, seeing as how it was in the girls' dorms. No, it wasn't like the common area where he had an excuse for being there and it was a hang out for everyone. Her dorm was much more personal and it was in the girls' section, which meant that some sneaking was required.

Nine o'clock might been too early, seeing as how there were some people still awake, but Bakugou took it as a challenge get to her room without anyone seeing him. He could stand to work on his stealth anyways. He made it to her room without any incidents somehow, but then she took her sweet ass time getting to the door. "C'mon, Round Face, I ain't got all night!" he hissed, glaring around to make sure no one was coming.

Uraraka had barely opened the door before Bakugou shoved his way inside. She had to jump back to avoid being hit and then shut the door. Her cheeks were red and she was doing that nervous giggle, which just made him glower at her. This had been her idea in the first place. Well, the room had been his bet, but it was fine. He had been in Ashido's and Jirou's rooms with the boys. The only difference was that this was Uraraka's room.

And it was just the two of them.

Bakugou shoved his hand in his pockets. "So what are we watching?"

"Oh, you'll see," Uraraka said excitedly, pushing past him to finish setting up the movie.

He looked around, noting the lack of decorations. Ashido's and Jirou's rooms had so much in them, but he found that Uraraka's was lacking besides some photos and a few extra pillows. It occurred to him that she probably didn't have the money to put in the extra effort to decorate and she tried to make do with a few personal touches. Honestly, he had expected a lot of...pink. When he finally turned back around, he saw that Uraraka was watching him, an embarrassed look on her face.

"I know it's not much," she admitted, rubbing her arms. She was wearing a black tank top and shorts, something comfortable to wear after going to the gym.

"It doesn't matter what your dorm looks like," Bakugou told her, "just what you do here."

A smile appeared on Uraraka's face and said, "Thanks," before sitting down on the ground where she'd stacked a bunch of pillows against her bed. Bakugou was inwardly grateful that she'd make the makeshift seat on the floor. It hadn't hit him until he'd stepped inside that she didn't have anywhere to sit besides the one chair at her desk and her bed, but she had clearly thought ahead.

Bakugou dropped his backpack and then began to pull out some snacks and drinks near her. She began to rifle through them, her eyes wide and her mouth practically salivating. He hadn't lost the bet that would've required him to bring food, but had done so anyways. "If I'm gonna watch this dumb movie, I better have something to snack on that I actually like."

As the movie began to start, Bakugou plopped down next to her, but made sure there was at least a foot of space in between them. If Uraraka noticed his conscious attempt to not get too close, she didn't say anything as she settled into a more comfortable position. When the movie started, Bakugou could tell within the first five minutes that he was not going to enjoy this at all. She had picked something stupidly cheesy. It was supposed to be romantic, cute, and funny, but it just made Bakugou want to gag.

"What do she even see in that guy?" Bakugou complained, holding a hand out. "He's a jackass and isn't even funny." Uraraka had a hand pressed to her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter, but she ended up snorting. "All he does is put her down. Is that what girls are supposed to like?"

"Yeah, who would like a guy that is mean to them?" Uraraka added, sounding suspiciously like she was teasing him.

Bakugou scowled at her. "I'm not mean; I'm being honest." He waved a hand at the TV guy in question. He wasn't even that good-looking, all things considered. They could've picked a more handsome actor. "He's a dick. He won't even admit to her that he accidentally slept with her twin sister. It's gonna cause issues later."

"I think that's the point," Uraraka said as he reached into the bag of snacks he was holding to get a handful.

"Miscommunication and lying is such a stupid plot device," Bakugou informed her. He shook his head. "You know what's going to happen, right?" She shook her head. "It's all gonna come up and she's gonna get upset, but then somehow he's gonna turn it on her. Because he didn't know it wasn't her. After a while, she'll come back crawling back and apologize when she didn't even do anything wrong. Because. He's. A. Jackass."

Uraraka exploded into laughter, apparently unable to hold it in any longer. Bakugou didn't know why he was getting so worked up about this in the first place. He hadn't planned on actually paying attention to the movie, but then Uraraka was right there and they were sharing snacks and though he was almost positive that they'd had plenty of space between them, their shoulders were nearly touching now. She kept playing with her fingers, touching her pads together but never all at once, and the urge to grab one of them and stop her was so strong that he had to watch the movie or he felt like he might do something drastic.

"Are you hot?" Uraraka asked him suddenly, peering up at him from underneath her eyelashes. "You look a little flushed. I can turn the heat down."

"I'm fine," Bakugou said roughly, trying very hard to ignore his sweat-covered palms. If he had known they were going to be this problematic, he would've brought a hand towel or something. Wiping something explosive on his clothes was always a terrible idea. "Watch your movie."

For the rest of the time, Bakugou did his best to stay silent. Every time he felt like bursting out with a complaint, he'd open his mouth and then either shove food in it or take a drink. Unfortunately it caused the side effect of him being hyper aware of the fact that he was alone in Uraraka's dorm with her and she was very close. It occurred to him that the only time he'd just sat and watched a movie with someone in their dorm was when Kirishima popped in with one and conned Bakugou into watching it with him.

Just sitting around, eating snacks, watching a movie. It was so damn _normal_. He bet Uraraka did this with her friends all the time. Had Deku or Iida done this with her? Had they been in her dorm room at this hour before? She had seemed flabbergasted over his bet to use her dorm instead of his or the common room area, but then, maybe it was because she was shy about how "boring" she thought her room looked compared to everyone else's.

When the movie was finally over, Bakugou sunk in his spot and threw his head back on the bed, letting out a loud groan. "Gods, Uraraka, that was so shitty. Do you watch these kinds of movies often?"

"Sometimes," she admitted, "but I did kind of pick the worst one I found this time."

"Thanks for making it special just for me," Bakugou griped.

As Uraraka set about turning the movie off, he sat there and idly watched her move around the room. She seemed more sluggish than usual, but then again, she had pushed herself incredibly hard in their hero lesson today. If not for Sero's quick reacting, he would've been launched to the ceiling after allowing himself to get touched by Uraraka in the middle of their combat scenario. Granted, it had been pretty hilarious when he'd dropped to the ground with a yelp when she'd deactivated her quirk. It had been a joy to watch.

So lost in thought, Bakugou hadn't realized that he was kind of staring and that Uraraka was done with whatever she had to do, which left them just looking at each other awkwardly. His eyes caught the clock on the wall behind her. "Ah, right. I need to get to bed."

"Can't miss that six a.m. run?" Uraraka teased.

"I still think it would be a good idea if you joined me," Bakugou said as he stood up, although he wasn't sure why he said it. He didn't want her to join him. "You should work on your cardio more."

Instead of being insulted, Uraraka shook her head, but there was a smile on her face. "Thanks for the honesty."

He gathered his things, leaving the drink she'd been sipping on behind, and then stretched as he stood up. The seats that she'd made with her pillows had been comfortable, but his ass still hurt a little. It would've been more comfortable if he could've laid down and watched the movie like he did in his own dorm whenever Kirishima came over. But then the idea of both him and her laying down on the bed watching the movie popped into his head and he almost turned red all over again.

"You better not tell anyone I watched this dumb movie or I'll kick your ass," Bakugou half-ass threatened as he made his way to the door.

Uraraka put a hand over her heart. "Not a word." She dropped her hand, catching it with her other so that she could wring them in front of her stomach. "But I'm still counting on you doing that Thursday."

"I'm not ever letting you win at Mario Kart again, Angel Face," Bakugou warned her, "so prepare to be humiliated on a grand scale."

Instead of looking scared or irritated, Uraraka looked quite happy. It made little sense to Bakugou. Why would she be happy about getting destroyed at a video game and therefore embarrassed? However, his heart beat a little faster before settling in what felt like relief. They were still on for Thursday night. Honestly, he couldn't wait. He didn't wait for her to say anything else before he slipped out of her dorm room, careful to make sure that none of the girls were around. By the time he made it back to his own dorm, any irritation at that movie had faded away.


	8. Chapter 8

Notes: Fact - Everything can be improved with Todoroki and Kaminari.

* * *

Surprisingly, Jirou had been the one to come up with this whole plan, including sneaking Kaminari into her dorm with no one spotting him. He'd seen it once before, but it was typically frowned upon when boys went to the girls' dorm and vice versa. However, when Jirou had come up with the idea to spy on Bakugou and Uraraka's...whatever it was, she had told him that her room was next to Uraraka's and she could use her quirk to listen in on them.

Taking a deep breath, Jirou looked back at him, one of her earjacks hovering centimeters away from the wall. "You sure you want to do this? Bakugou will kill us if he finds out."

"We're his friends," Kaminari insisted. "It'll be a quick death at least."

Jirou made a look like she agreed with him, bobbing her head in a nod, and then plugged it into the wall. For what felt like thirty minutes but was probably more like thirty seconds, Kaminari just stood there in silence, staring at her while she listened carefully.

"What are they saying? What are they doing?"

"Sh! You're being too loud! I can't hear anything."

"Well, if you had let me come in earlier, we wouldn't be scrambling so much."

"Shut it, Kaminari!" Jirou's brow was furrowed in concentration until it slowly turned to confusion. The expression made him antsy, but when he opened his mouth to question her further, she pressed a finger against his lips to shut him up. It did an incredible job, but almost fried his brain in the process. "I think… I think they're watching a movie." Her eyes widened. "A chick flick!"

"But Bakugou hates chick flicks," Kaminari said against her finger, which was still pressed against his lips and no longer doing its job. "He refuses to watch them with Kirishima and Ashido."

Jirou frowned. "They're not talking anymore. They're just...watching it together."

"That's bor-"

At that exact moment, the door opened and a voice that sounded like Momo asked, "What are you two doing?"

Both of them startled so badly, losing the precarious balance of Kaminari hanging halfway on Jirou's back that he hadn't even noticed he was doing while she was eavesdropping, and he fell on top of her awkwardly. After she managed to shove him off of her and he rolled onto his butt, they found themselves looking at who was indeed Momo standing in the doorway, a super confused expression on her face.

"Oh, we were…." Jirou cringed when she couldn't think of anything.

"We were making out!" Kaminari exclaimed.

Momo's eyes widened. Jirou smacked him in the arm and gave him a look. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. One other person knowing this secret about Bakugou was bad enough, but two people was worse. Three people total would not be able to keep a secret, no matter how good of a person Momo was. It was bound to get out faster.

"We were not making out," Jirou corrected.

"It looked like you were listening in on someone…" Momo turned to look at the wall that connected Jirou's room with Uraraka's. Kaminari could see the wheels turning in her head. "Are you spying on Uraraka?"

Kaminari and Jirou looked at each other and then back at Momo before answering simultaneously, "No?"

In a flash, Momo shut the door and stormed into the room, hissing, "You are!" and Kaminari knew without a doubt that they'd been busted. Neither one of them was going to be able to hold it in against the earnestness that made up Momo. She was the vice class rep too. Besides, Kaminari might try to lie to her, but he knew damn well that Jirou wouldn't. This was going to be a disaster. "Why?"

Kaminari's eyes flickered to Jirou's again and he attempted use them to telepathically shout, _Don't say a word!_

 _I can't help it,_ Jirou's eyes said back. Or that was what he assumed they said. Kaminari had realized in that moment that he wasn't really that great at reading people by their eyes. She might've assumed that he was asking her to be the one to talk.

"Well?" Momo prompted, putting her hands on her hips.

"Bakugou is in there," Jirou finally answered.

Momo's jaw dropped. "She snuck Bakugou into her room?"

Kaminari shrugged his shoulders. "To be fair, I think it was more like Bakugou snuck in."

It looked as if Momo had received the kind of news that twisted your whole world on its end. She just stared at them, mouth agape, and then looked at the wall like she might be able to peek through it in order to see whatever was going on in there. That would've been a nice ability, but no, they could only listen and Kaminari wasn't sure that Momo would be down with eavesdropping.

"Are they…?" Momo gathered herself together. "Should I be concerned as vice class rep?"

Kaminari tilted his head. "Huh?"

"Oh, gods, no!" Jirou rushed to jump in. "They're just watching some dumb chick flick."

The words were another blow to Momo's attempt to be collected. This was clearly doing a number on her head, which was trying to jump through hoops in order to come up with a conclusion that made sense. Unfortunately for her, none of this made sense. Bakugou was willingly watching a chick flick in Uraraka's dorm. None of them would've been the wiser had Kaminari not been kind of tuned into any time those two were near each other after walking in on them on two separate occasions.

"Although I didn't really stick around to see what happened after Bakugou took his shirt off and gave it to her," Kaminari continued, "or when she gave it back to him in the laundry room."

Momo brought a hand to her mouth and sat down, as if she could no longer stand after hearing everything. Honestly, Kaminari couldn't blame her. It was a lot to take in. She hadn't even gone to the movies with them last week, so she'd only heard about Uraraka floating Bakugou like a balloon while they'd walked to the theater. She hadn't seen that incredibly weird and fantastic change in Bakugou's temperament the second that he'd let Uraraka grab his hand.

"This is...unexpected," Momo decided on saying.

"Understatement of the year," Jirou put in.

With Momo looking shell-shocked, Kaminari figured this was the best time to bring something else up. "You can't tell anyone."

"Huh?" Momo blinked at him.

"I don't know exactly what's going on," Kaminari explained, "but this all started when I found them playing Mario Kart after everyone went to bed." He bit his lip and hesitated. He'd had a lot of time to think about this on his own and, while he wasn't certain, he thought he was finally close to figuring it out. "I think they've been playing the game after everyone goes to bed - but neither one of them has said anything. Bakugou's pretty private, you know? He's gone out of his way to keep whatever this is with Uraraka...mostly a secret."

"You all said he held hands with Uraraka and even sat by her at the movies though," Momo pointed out.

"Yeah, but he wouldn't tell anyone why," Kaminari said, "and neither would Uraraka."

Momo put a hand to her chin in thought. "Do you think they're secretly dating?"

"When? How long? Why?" There were too many questions for Kaminari to list. Every time he thought that he was getting closer to the truth, more of them popped up. Uraraka was close friends with Deku. He had kind of assumed that she had a crush on Deku too. But it wasn't Deku playing video games with her in the middle of the night. It wasn't Deku who she was swapping shirts with. It wasn't Deku in her dorm right now.

It was Bakugou. It was all Bakugou.

"Then what was up with Bakugou buying Todoroki lunch?" Momo asked.

Kaminari pointed a finger at her. "Aha! See!" He looked over at Jirou. She had also suggested that Bakugou and Uraraka were secretly dating. "It doesn't add up."

While looking both confused and thoughtful about the whole thing, Momo took a breath and fixed Kaminari and Jirou with looks that had them both wilting. "While I'm uncertain if Bakugou being in Uraraka's dorm room is appropriate, if they're just watching a movie, then it should be fine. What is not appropriate is eavesdropping on our neighbors in their private domiciles."

Neither Jirou nor Kaminari could muster any arguments about that, so they mumbled their apologies and nodded their heads in agreement. Besides, if Uraraka and Bakugou really were just watching some chick flick, then it would really make for a boring night. Kaminari wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it hadn't been that. At least neither Jirou nor Momo could label him as some sort of pervert since it had been Jirou's idea and he couldn't hear anything anyways.

Momo stood up in her elegant manner. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding."

"Yeah, we won't spy on them anymore," Jirou assured Momo, who smiled appreciatively at them. "Uh, what did you need anyways?"

"Oh! I was wondering if you could give me a few more music suggestions. Certain music helps me concentrate on creating different things."

After Jirou helped Momo out, Momo told Kaminari not to stay in Jirou's dorm for much longer, but then left them to their own devices. While relieved that they hadn't gotten in more trouble and Momo had even seemed like she was uninterested in the whole Bakugou and Uraraka affair. Maybe she wouldn't tell anyone and their secret would be safer for a little longer. They could put this whole thing behind them and pretend they didn't know.

As soon as the door was shut, Jirou turned back to grin at Kaminari, who got a funny and awful feeling in his gut at the same time. "We won't spy on them anymore - at least not tonight. I have a feeling we've hit something big."

Yeah, they were in trouble.

* * *

Much like a road in Mario Kart, life had a funny way of twisting on Bakugou and sending him into a tailspin. Just when he thought that he was getting the hang of things, Aizawa threw a banana on the road and didn't even give Bakugou the time to dodge it. Go figure their homeroom teacher would do something like this. Bakugou should have expected it. Things had been too quiet on the class front, which was usually when they would be hit up the head by something in their hero course.

"Next week, we're going to do teams of two combat matches," Aizawa explained as he peeled himself out of his yellow sleeping bag. Many students in the class grinned and knocked hands with each other. "You will need to choose a partner that you have not previously worked with before whose quirk you might not originally consider at first to be compatible with your own."

Well, that took out most of his friends. Bakugou had worked with Kirishima, Mina, and Kaminari multiple times throughout their time at UA. It also took Deku, Icy Hot, and Engine Legs off the table, thank everything. Sometimes it felt like the teachers here went out of their way to stick him with those two, thinking it might give him impart some sort of meaningful life lesson on him. He hated it every single time.

"However, this will be a spur of the moment decision, as I'm making you choose right now and I will be calling on you at random," Aizawa continued, no hint of mercy in his voice. His declaration sent a shockwave through the class, furtive and panicked glances being shot around. They were only being given a minute or two to decide and those at the end would be left at a disadvantage as their choices were potentially taken. "This also means that half of the class will have their decision made for them."

Oh no. Bakugou did not like the sound of that. He hated when his partners were chosen for him. Of course it made sense for Aizawa to do this. More likely than not, when they were pro heroes, they would not be given much choice to decide who they had to work with, especially when it came time to fight a villain. Not everyone's quirks matched up, but it was good practice to come up with creative ways to do so when push came to shove. And their teacher was definitely shoving them.

The first person Aizawa called on was Ashido, who surprisingly had a quick answer: "Midoriya!"

Deku looked like he might choke on his tongue, clearly not expecting to be picked, but then Ashido gave him the thumbs up and a big grin and he beamed right back. It made Bakugou scoff. Why the hell would she pick Deku? Bakugou couldn't see how their quirks would match up, but maybe that was the point. It was all about ingenuity and, as loathe as he was to admit it, Deku had that in spades.

Next up was Ojiro, who picked Shoji. That would be an interesting combo, but it was require both of them to do mostly close combat. Anyone with a long range quirk would be at an advantage. Maybe that was the point. They would have to work on that factor.

Bakugou stopped paying attention, his eyes traveling around the room. Who did he want to be his teammate? Who would best fit the requirements of Aizawa's hero lesson, but also be an interesting and good match to help him win? His gaze landed on the back of Uraraka. She had a very serious expression on her face, her eyes looking down at her desk and her fingers doing that nervous pad ticking thing she did, always careful not to touch all of them together at once.

The pads were what snagged his full attention, the memory of her floating him rocketing to the forefront of his mind. If he closed his eyes, he could still recall what it felt like to be made weightless and tethered to the world by her. It had been more exhilarating than he wanted to admit. She could be his partner. A combination of their quirks would be something really interesting to work with. She had a hard work ethic and would let him push her even further; she could match him swing for swing; she would fight.

Yeah, when Aizawa called his name - and he better call it soon - Bakugou was going to pick Uraraka. It had nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to be around her more. That was absurd. They spent far too much time together as it was.

Bakugou's entire thought process was shattered into a million pieces when, out of everyone in the class, when Todoroki was called on, he simply said, "Uraraka."

She stiffened in surprise, whipping her head around to gawk at Todoroki, while Bakugou's eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare. Even a few others in the class were caught off guard by Todoroki's snap decision. Was Todoroki shitting him? Had he really picked Uraraka? Why had he done that? What was the fucking point? Uraraka was supposed to be Bakugou's partner. This wasn't fair at all. They were trying to leave Todoroki out of this mess and he had dug his way back in. As if people thinking Bakugou had a crush on him or Uraraka wasn't bad enough…

Todoroki's gaze turned to her and, smiling nervously, Uraraka said, "Thanks!"

"It'll be interesting to see how we can pair our quirks together," Todoroki explained coolly, "and you're very good at team match-ups. I figured you were my best choice from the beginning."

The blush that dusted Uraraka's cheeks almost made Bakugou snap his pencil in half. Why the hell was she looking at Todoroki like that? She nodded her head in agreement and then went back to paying attention to the rest of the teams being formed. Bakugou glared at her so hard, like he was trying to scream telepathically until a minute later she turned glanced over at him, a questioning expression on her face. He scowled. She rolled her eyes in what looked like amusement and shrugged her shoulders.

This would be about the time that Aizawa called out, "Bakugou."

Well, shit. Todoroki had taken his first choice. Bakugou looked around the room briefly, taking note of who had already been picked, and settled on, "Sero." It was the next logical choice. They were what most people would call good friends and Sero, he knew, was much more athletic than people gave him credit for. Plus, he was agreeable to work with when he wasn't being a stupid little shit. Sero seemed pleased with being picked, giving Bakugou a look that said he wouldn't regret his choice.

He better not. Bakugou glowered at both Uraraka and Todoroki as they moved desk to sit next to one another. He and Sero were going to crush those two.

* * *

"Hey, so I know I wasn't your first choice," Sero said after class, rubbing the back of his neck, "but I appreciate it."

"We're going to kick everyone's ass," Bakugou told him, feeling about twenty degrees hotter as he caught sight of Uraraka and Todoroki waving to one another before splitting up.

Kirishima came up from behind them, elbowing Bakugou in the ribs. "I'd watch out, Sero. Our boy is on a mission here and I think you've been caught in the crosshairs." There was a huge shit-eating grin on his face. Sero nodded like he'd already known that, which irritated the hell out of Bakugou. If they were going to suggest that Bakugou had wanted to be partners with Todoroki, then they were dead wrong. "Did you see him in class when Todoroki picked Uraraka? I thought for sure he was going to explode."

"I was not," Bakugou snapped. He had much better control over himself.

Besides it didn't matter if Todoroki had chosen Uraraka. She fit the requirements. He wasn't sure how her quirk would match up with his, but knowing that bastard, he'd come up with something. That didn't even include Uraraka, who Bakugou now knew damn well was much sneakier and devious than she seemed. Maybe he could get some information out of her when they played Mario Kart on Thursday night. Probably not though. She was very loyal to her partners and friends.

"What?" Kirishima goaded. "Jealous of Uraraka?"

"No," Bakugou ground out.

"Jealous of Todoroki?"

"No!" Bakugou had to resist the urge to stomp away. It would look childish and give the wrong idea. "I'm not jealous of anyone, so shut the hell up."

Kirishima was positively giddy, rubbing his hands together. "The love triangle plot thickens."

"There is no love triangle!"

"You know, I heard that polygamous relationships are in these days," Kirishima offered. "You should see if they're into that."

Okay, that was it. Firecracker explosions went off in Bakugou's hands as he launched towards Kirishima. The redhead dodged at the last second, but then took off down the hall, laughing the whole time, while Bakugou chased after him, both of them leaving Sero to his own devices outside of the classroom.

At that moment, Kaminari poked his head out of the classroom, relieved to see that Bakugou was gone. He had been about to walk out of the class when he had heard Kirishima teasing Bakugou. No way was he going to get in the middle of that, especially after what had gone down. Kaminari had been certain that Bakugou was going to pick Uraraka, what with the way his eyes were locked on her like a missile guidance computer. Then Todoroki had pulled a fast one and picked her first, effectively blowing Kaminari's mind. He and Jirou had connected eyes, both their eyebrows raised, and then he had caught sight of Bakugou.

Oh boy, Bakugou had not looked happy at all.

Slipping fully out of the classroom, Kaminari peered at Bakugou and Kirishima disappearing around the corner, although Bakugou could still be heard. "What was that about?"

"Kirishima is walking on thin ice," Sero sighed. "I don't think Bakugou handles jealousy well."

Last night popped into Kaminari's head. Bakugou and Uraraka watching a romcom in her dorm.

"Really? Who would he be jealous of?" Kaminari's voice was more high pitch than he would've liked. It made him sound like he was hiding something. Sero must have noticed it because he turned to give Kaminari an odd look and Kaminari laughed awkwardly. "Well, hopefully Bakugou isn't too hard on Kirishima! I gotta go!"

Why were they making this so difficult for him to keep his mouth shut? This was not going to end well.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes:** Sorry it took so long for an update! My dumb ass got roped into writing another long fic. No regrets.

* * *

That Thursday night, Bakugou was sitting a table in the library, sketching out some quirk combination ideas with Sero, when Uraraka appeared from behind a bookcase like a ghost. It was almost time to the class's Mario Kart party shenanigans, but Bakugou wanted to get a few more ideas down before he took a break. If he was late to it, then so be it. Sero had already left, claiming that he had other homework to finish before the games began, which was fine by Bakugou. Sketching alone was when he got his best ideas.

He had not counted on Uraraka showing up. Although he wouldn't admit it, he had kind of been avoiding her since Todoroki had picked her as a partner. Not that it was her fault or anything that Todoroki had stolen his first choice right out from underneath his nose. He just felt irritable and awkward around her. He'd been so obvious about how angry he'd been at Todoroki's decision and Kirishima teasing him for it hadn't made him feel better.

But tonight was their night to hang out and he didn't care how embarrassed he'd been by the whole situation. He liked these nights too much to give them up. Besides, he needed to show her that he wasn't afraid of her - and he definitely wasn't afraid of Todoroki. They could put everything from school this week away and focus on the game. Their game nights were separate from everything else.

"Good, Sero said you were here," Uraraka said.

Bakugou glowered up at her. "Why were you asking him where I was?"

He had important work to do before he kicked her ass later tonight. Honestly, he probably wasn't going to make it back to the common area to play Mario Kart with everyone else, but he didn't really care about that. The only person he wanted to play with was Uraraka anyways. Everyone else could suck it.

Uraraka immediately became uncomfortable, which made Bakugou suspicious. "Oh, I, um…"

"Out with it, Round Face," Bakugou said, still sounding a lot more patient than he'd planned. It threw him off.

"I wanted to let you know that I can't play tonight," Uraraka told him.

Okay, the patience was gone, replaced with confusion. "What do you mean?" It was a stupid question, one that had slipped out without him thinking about it first, but he couldn't help himself. This was...their night. They'd been doing this for weeks now. He hadn't realized how much he used it to blow off steam and have a little fun until it was ripped away from him.

"It's just for tonight!" Uraraka insisted quickly. "Todoroki wants to go over some strategies for the match-up and-"

"You're ditching me for Icy Hot?" Bakugou couldn't believe it. He was _livid_. What else was that bastard going to take from him? His dignity?

Uraraka frowned up at him. "It's for school. I thought you'd understand."

That was what irritated the most. He did understand. Their time at U.A. was the most important thing in the world to him right now. It was why he'd dragged Sero into the library the past two days for hours on end before they could actually practice combining their quirks together. And he had done it right after classes were over today so that he would have some free time tonight still. It hadn't occurred to him that Uraraka might use what was their time to hang out for something else. This was their night. He'd worked around it so that they could still hang out. Why hadn't she?

On the other end, he knew that he was being stupid. None of this was set in stone. It could end at any given point. This whole thing had started out to help Uraraka get over her own motion sickness and tease her in the process, but they were past that. Maybe it was finally coming to an end. Maybe this was it. Bakugou didn't want to let it go though - except that meant he lashed out.

"No, I get it," Bakugou said. "That's far more important. I've got better things to do anyways."

Hurt flashed across Uraraka's face and he almost regretted his words. It was there and gone though before she put on one of those smiles she did to cover up her feelings. "We can still play on Monday, right?"

"Doubtful," Bakugou replied flatly. "I've got a lot going on next week."

The smile faltered on her face. "Oh, okay."

Her reaction twisted something in his gut and had him sighing irritably. Damn this girl. There was something about her that had him making some really dumb mistakes. Besides, he did want to play the game with her on Monday. He wanted to hang out tonight. But it was a good thing that she was taking his match up seriously since he and Sero were going to kick hers and Todoroki's asses.

Glancing to the right to avoid looking at her directly, Bakugou folded his arms across his chest. "I can probably move some stuff around though to make time."

Uraraka's face practically glowed when her smile returned, much more genuine this time. "Awesome! I'm looking forward to kicking your ass twice next week."

Bakugou smirked down at her. "Fat chance, Pink Cheeks."

She waved him off cheerily and bounded out of the library, looking like she was on cloud nine. He'd let her have it for now, but she wouldn't be so giddy next week. Bakugou was planning on wiping the floor with everyone. Sero better be thanking his lucky stars that they were on the same team.

* * *

As if the gods saw it fit to punish him further for whatever past behavior it had deemed bad, Bakugou's eyes seemed to always find Uraraka whenever she was with Todoroki. It was suddenly like the two of them were glued at the hip. He knew it was an exaggeration and only seemed like that because he was in a mood about Todoroki taking his time with Uraraka on Thursday night, but it still irritated the hell out of him.

They ate together, strategized in the common area together, did their homework together. What? Were they new best friends now? They didn't have to do all those things with one another.

There were also the times they were gone together practicing their quirk combinations. Each team had a slotted time to work on their fighting styles so that they'd be more prepared when the battle actually began and no one could watch in order to get an upper hand. Uraraka and Todoroki's was two teams after Bakugou and Sero's. They always came back sweaty and red-faced, Uraraka holding her stomach, but she was smiling and even Todoroki looked mildly content.

The only one that appeared to be as equally deflated about the whole thing was Deku, of all people. But then, Icy Hot and Round Face were two of his closest friends and they were basically excluding him. Deku couldn't hide the put out expression on his face when Todoroki and Uraraka looked like they were in a world of their own, although Ashido as his partner was the best possible distraction. With her loud and bright personality, not to mention her appearance, she could distract anyone.

Luckily, after throwing himself hard into working with Sero, by the time Monday came along, the two of them had some damn good moves they could use. Bakugou didn't want good though. He wanted great.

Thankfully, Sero didn't seem to mind the beating that was included when working with him, but he wasn't in the mood for more strategizing by the time they finished their allotted time. "Okay, I need to unwind before bed or I'll going to dream of you blasting me to the moon." He collapsed onto the couch. "Kaminari, can you bring out your gaming system? I just want to play some mindless video games before I pass out."

Kaminari's eyes flickered to Bakugou on the couch and then, inexplicably, to Uraraka, who was, of course, doing her lit homework with Todoroki. "No problem!" He would've bolted out of the room if not for Jirou, who snagged him by the elbow. "Oh, yeah, sure, I could use some help." The two of them left together, even though Kaminari had brought all his gaming stuff out on his own before. Maybe he was going to get a few different games.

To be honest, Bakugou could do with some mindless gaming as well, but he had homework that needed to be taken care of - unless Uraraka was planning on ditching him again and he could do it then. A part of him wanted to slack off now so that he'd have an excuse to turn her down should she want to play. Give her a taste of her own medicine and see how she liked being an afterthought.

And then he made the mistake of glancing in her direction and caught eyes with her. A bright smile appeared on her face and she gave him a subtle thumbs up that made his stomach twist. She didn't need to say anything for him to know what that meant.

It was game on then.

While Sero, Kaminari, and Kirishima played video games, Bakugou went to his room to do his homework. It would be at least two hours before he and Uraraka could play anyways, seeing as how she still had her time to work with Todoroki and then they had to wait for everyone to go to bed. He supposed that the latter wasn't that big of a deal breaker, but he didn't want anyone else around. He wanted it to just be the two of them, especially after not being around her for almost a week.

Up until this whole team up thing, Bakugou hadn't realized how big of a fixture Uraraka had become in his life recently. When she was suddenly gone from it, back to how things had been before, he hadn't like it one bit. It felt like something was missing. At first, he'd thought it was Ashido's absence that was frustrating him - because she was always there and now she was with Deku - but then while she'd pop back in, the feeling was still there.

Besides, if he had to hear her talk about that nerd anymore, he'd lose his shit. It turned out that they were huge fans with the same show and Bakugou did not want to hear about how "secretly cool" Deku was. If he did his homework in his dorm, then he could avoid all discussions about anything.

A few hours later, after finishing up homework and taking a shower, Bakugou meandered back into the common area, toweling his hair dry. He caught the tail end of Uraraka and Todoroki saying goodnight to each other after coming back from their quirk work out and ducked into the kitchen before Todoroki could see him. Bakugou definitely didn't hide, but the fridge door did block him from sight.

By the time Bakugou walked back into the common area, Uraraka was plopped down longways on the couch, an arm thrown over her face and one leg stretched out while her other foot dangled to the floor. He sat down on the opposite end, scooting her foot to give himself some space but not shoving it off the couch entirely, and then tossed her a bottle of water. She just barely managed to catch it before it landed on her stomach.

"Oh, thanks," Uraraka sighed, pulling her foot away from him and sitting up straight.

"You look like shit," Bakugou pointed out.

"Hm." Uraraka unscrewed the cap and damn near gulped half of the water down in one go. "I feel like it too."

Bakugou eyed her sideways. "You sure you're up for this?"

"I mean, honestly, I'm probably going to puke, but…" Uraraka gave him a determined smile. "I can't just give up because I'm tired. What kind of hero does that?"

A little snort escaped Bakugou. "A shitty one."

She had already set up the game while he'd been in the kitchen and had then laid down waiting for him. He couldn't help but wonder if she had told Todoroki if she was staying up a bit longer or if she'd acted as if she was going to bed too. Not that it mattered. The fact that they'd been able to do this for so long without anyone finding out was nothing short of a miracle, but he wanted to keep it that way. No doubt his friends would give him hell if they ever found out. He wouldn't be embarrassed, but he liked having something private. Living in the dorms offered him very little of that.

"Besides, I want to play," Uraraka continued as she set up her race car.

Bakugou glanced over at what she'd chosen so far. "Sure you want to go with those wheels?"

Uraraka stuck her tongue out in response. "Bite me."

"Only if you make that your bet," Bakugou responded as he finished setting up his car. She made a little squeaking sound of surprise in response and a smirk slowly stretched across his face. It felt good being here right now, like nothing else mattered except them and this game. He'd missed teasing her. She was so easy to make blush. That was a game in itself.

Before starting the race, Uraraka glanced over at him, blush dusting her cheeks. "So, um, what's your bet?"

"Hm, maybe I'll go easy on you tonight since I'm going to wipe the floor with you and Icy Hot this week," Bakugou mused thoughtfully. She reached over to punch him in the shoulder. It didn't hurt at all and only made him cackle. She seemed to take personal offense to his response, but flopped back in her seat. "Let's see… Something absolutely ridiculous and dumb that I can take personal glee out of…"

"You don't have to sound so cruel," Uraraka grumbled under her breath. If she really wasn't enjoying this though, she wouldn't be here, ready to dish out just the same.

"Okay, if I win, you've gotta dye your hair," Bakugou said. "Blue!"

Uraraka pouted. "I'd look ridiculous!"

"It doesn't have to be the permanent kind," Bakugou replied as he reached over to tap her controller to start the race. He was getting antsy. If she couldn't talk and race at the same time, then she really needed to work harder at this. "You can get the stuff that lasts a week or whatever, the kind people use for cons." She looked doubtful. "It's not that difficult. I'd help you."

"You'd...help me?" Uraraka gawked at him instead of the television screen.

He gave her a flat look and pointed at it until she got the hint and jerked her head in that direction. "Well, it'd be a bonus seeing you go through the five stages of grieving over your hair."

She huffed. "That doesn't sound helpful at _all_." Right when the countdown hit one, she pressed the acceleration button - but then immediately rammed into him instead of trying to blow past him in the race, which meant that the both of them were in last place. He grunted irritably, taken aback by the tactic, which had her speeding off while his character still recovered. "If I win, you have to make me dinner - for three nights next week."

"Oh, that's a good one," Bakugou said, physically leaning to the left as his kart went around a sharp turn. "I'm an _incredible_ cook."

"So humble," Uraraka responded dryly, only to mutter a particularly inventive swear under her breath when he knocked her kart out with a red shell.

Something warm burned in his chest and Bakugou couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face. "Oh, careful now, such a foul mouth for a supposedly sweet girl." She shot him a glare. "Better not let our class rep hear you talking like that." She was always so sweet and positive that her random foul mouth always took him by surprise. She would occasionally repeat any swears or insults that she found funny, much to the detriment of Iida and amusement of Bakugou.

"Are you kidding me!" Uraraka exclaimed, nearly jumping off the couch when she drove into the third banana peel in a row. He was dropping them right when she got close to him so that it was next to impossible for her to miss, causing her kart to spiral out of control and crash into a wall. "You're doing it on purpose!"

"Doing what?" Bakugou asked.

Uraraka fumed. "Letting me catch up to you so you can cause me to wreck!"

"I don't _let_ people catch up to me," Bakugou told her.

"You do when you want to be a jackass," Uraraka grumbled.

Laughter burst out of Bakugou before he could even think about it, coming from him so naturally. At this point, if she kept swearing, people were going to know that they'd been hanging out. No one in her group of friends swore or at least they did so quietly. Deku never did. Iida would probably give himself detention if he uttered something even close to a swear. Todoroki would just look and sound awkward if he did. Asui didn't seem the type, unless those "ribbits" were actually curses.

When their races came to an end, two to three, Uraraka was left staring at the screen in utter shock. Bakugou was stretched out casually on the couch, feet on the coffee table and hands behind his head, radiating smugness as he smirked over at her. She had lost, which meant that she had to dye her hair blue.

Uraraka swallowed. "I can't believe…"

"Read it and weep it, Angel Face," Bakugou said.

"I'm going to look so dumb!"

"I'll be nice." Bakugou leaned over and gently tugged on one of the strands of hair that framed her face, bringing her gaze away from the screen and over to him. "You can pick whatever color you want."

Uraraka twisted her lips and gave him a pitiful look. "So it doesn't have to be neon blue?"

He leaned back into the couch. "Up to you."

Letting out a little displeased groan, Uraraka pressed her hands against her cheeks. "You're gonna make me do this before the team fights, aren't you?"

"Well, if you're too scared…" Bakugou shrugged his shoulders.

Whatever anxiousness that had been overwhelming Uraraka about her impending hair color change faded away as a fire overtook her eyes. Bakugou grinned at her, teeth and all. There it was, that fire that he'd seen in her when they had first fought against one another in the Sports Festival their first year. She hid it sometimes, although he wasn't sure why, not when it was one of the best things about her. That was the girl he liked, the one that wouldn't back down from anything.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes:** This is some fluffy ass shit right here. I can also attest to the fact that dyeing your hair is so much easier with someone to help you.

* * *

It turned out that there were a lot of things that Bakugou hadn't anticipated when it came to making his last bet, like just how cramped the bathrooms were and how awkward helping Uraraka dye her hair would be. He should have thought it out, but in his overeagerness to tease her, he hadn't considered what it might look like. It wasn't like they could just walk into the bathroom together, so they had to figure something else out. Sneaking into her dorm to watch a chick flick in the middle of the night was one thing, but that was definitely more than he could handle without his brain exploding.

The night before their team fights, Uraraka found him in the kitchen and waved a small box in his face. "I picked out a color."

Bakugou plucked it from her fingers and raised his eyebrows. Interesting choice. She was going much bolder than he'd expected, but then he caught the determined look in her eyes and a grin slid onto his face. He should have known that she would beat his expectations. As much as she hadn't liked the idea of dying her hair blue at the time, she was refusing to back down now. She had to let Bakugou know that she wasn't afraid of anything. He also hadn't said that she had to dye her hair before their the match-ups, but she'd decided to do that as well.

"You sure about this one?" Bakugou taunted, wagging the box in front of her.

Uraraka snatched it out of his grip with surprising speed. She'd gotten a lot faster over the years. If she'd had this sort of speed during their fight at their first Sports Festival, he would've been really screwed. "I'm positive." She poked him in his chest. "Now are you gonna help me or not?"

"Oh yeah," Bakugou said, "I can't wait to see you freak out."

Rolling her eyes at him, Uraraka moved around him so that she could grab a water out of the fridge. "So where are we gonna do this? I, um, don't think it's a good idea to do it in the bathrooms." Her already pink cheeks somehow turned an even darker shade of pink. "I-I mean, there isn't a lot of room! And, well, the doors don't lock and…" She had definitely buried herself in a hole that he wasn't eager to help her out of immediately, but then she looked to be at a loss for words.

"We can dye your hair in my dorm," Bakugou said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Your dorm?" Uraraka shifted anxiously on her feet. "Wouldn't it make more sense to use mine?"

"Maybe, but it takes time for the dye to set in and your taste in music is probably as shit as your taste in movies," Bakugou pointed out. Uraraka gave him a half-hearted glare, but she didn't deny it either. He would've bet his entire bank account that she listened to whatever pop music was on the radio and he was not about to do that while they waited for her to wash the excess dye out. "Just meet me after you're done with Icy Hot."

The smile on Uraraka's face wasn't nearly as innocent as she made it out to be. "Nervous about tomorrow?"

"You fucking wish," Bakugou retorted. "You just worry about tonight."

Uraraka practically giggled as she flounced away, which irritated the hell out of Bakugou, but he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.

He finished making himself something to eat for dinner, shoving any thoughts of her out of his mind so that he could focus on tomorrow. He and Sero had gone through so many things in a matter of a week and, while he was confident, he still would've prefered more time to work on them. Aizawa didn't appear to be in a kind mood this week though.

It made him wonder about the other teams: how they had managed their time to train together, come up with quirk combination tactics, and ideas on how to beat other teams too. After all, you couldn't just think about your own team. Bakugou had to consider how other quirk combinations would work so that he could figure out their weaknesses and how to use his and Sero's quirks to use those weaknesses to their advantage.

Normally, Bakugou was in the common area when Uraraka came back from her training with Todoroki, but he had gone to his dorm earlier than usual. Sero had been taken aback, but hadn't complained, saying that he needed to get extra rest since Bakugou was going to run him ragged tomorrow. He was flipping through a few roughly sketched out ideas in his notebook and listening to music when there was a hesitant knock on his door.

When he got up and opened the door, Uraraka was standing there, completely red-faced, her hair already a mess, like she'd rushed straight here. She dove inside like someone might see her and question what she was doing, but there was no one in the hallway. He could instantly tell that she was having doubts about this, although he wasn't sure if it was the dying her hair part or being in his dorm, but either way, she was here and determined to go through with the bet.

"So I bought everything the lady at the shop said I'd need," Uraraka rushed to say as she unpacked everything from the bag she'd brought with her. The hair dye, latex gloves, developer, a squeeze bottle, and a clip to hold up her hair.

There was one thing she'd forgotten and Bakugou huffed as he pulled out one of his many towels. He had a lot to deal with the excess sweat his quirk produced when he wasn't using it. She gave him a questioning look. "I'm not having you get all that shit on my stuff. It's hell to clean out."

The look didn't leave her face at all. "How do you know that?" She stepped forward to peer at him far too closely and reached out like she might pick at his hair, but he leaned away from her and then she straightened up. "Do you dye your hair?"

"No!" Bakugou folded his arms across his chest. "Kirishima does." Oh, wait, he wasn't supposed to say that. Not that it was a big deal or anything. Kirishima sometimes got a little uppity about people knowing that red hair wasn't his natural color. Well, Uraraka wouldn't say anything. "I've seen him dye his hair a few times."

"Aw, that's really sweet," Uraraka giggled.

Bakugou scoffed. "Whatever." It was not sweet. He pulled out a pair of gloves, noting that she'd opted to get a size more inclined to fit him, and tossed them at her, giving her a smirk. "You ready for this?"

Uraraka took a deep breath and nodded her head. "For the record though, I hate this already."

Another thing that Bakugou had not anticipated was just how...intimate this whole thing was. When he had come up with the bet and even threw out the offer to help her, he hadn't considered how close he would have to get to her if he actually helped her. For now, he hung back and let her try it on her own, which proved somewhat disastrous. She mixed up the dye while he changed the music into something less for studying and more heart thumping, if only because it was more distracting.

Holding the bottle up, Uraraka asked, "Now what?"

"You just put it on your hair," Bakugou told her. She held the bottle over her head, sighed, and then squeezed a handful of the dye onto her hair, cringing as she did so. The look on her face was so dumb that he couldn't help but laugh. Luckily, the music was loud enough to drown it out so no one would hear him laughing in his dorm and question what he was doing. She hesitantly rubbed the dye on her hair, but she was confused. "You're doing it all wrong. You've gotta rub it in your hair, like conditioner."

Shaking his head, Bakugou pulled out another pair of latex gloves from the box and pulled them on with the precision of a surgeon. It was a weird feeling, the gloves making his hands sweatier than normal, so he moved quickly. Ignoring her indignant protests, Bakugou took the bottle of mixed hair dye from her, squeezed some on her head, and began to rub it in properly so that the dye coated her hair and there weren't any missing spots. He did it all without thinking. A few seconds later, it more or less hit him that he was standing inches away from Uraraka and playing with her hair.

Bakugou cleared his throat. "Turn around."

Uraraka seemed almost grateful to do so, her face beet red, turning around so that her back was to him. It was much easier to work this way. He'd at least get this part taken care of and she could do the rest. Kirishima always had trouble getting the back of his head and would get into some weird positions to cover it all. It was just quicker this way. Luckily she wasn't tender-headed, seeing as how he tugged on her hair every now and then when running his fingers through it.

"This is gonna look great," Bakugou informed her in his smuggest tone. His insides felt twisted, like she'd used her quirk on him and flipped him upside down. If he acted like nothing was weird, then she'd get the hint. He was not going to think about this any deeper. He was helping her dye her hair to embarrass her. It was going to be one big joke. There was definitely no other reason.

"Ass," Uraraka shot back at him, but then she actually shivered as he finished coating the back of her hair. She coughed. "Sorry, cold chill."

"There." Bakugou pulled his hands out and stepped away from her, jerking the gloves off. "You can do the rest."

Using the small mirror that he owned, Uraraka finished dying the rest of her hair and then used the clip to hold it up. After carefully peeling off the blue stained gloves, she tossed them away and put the towel over her shoulders to keep it from touching her skin or clothes. It didn't really matter since she already had a few spots of dye on her skin, including one on her cheek, but it would wash off. Bakugou had learned the hard way that hair dye didn't come out of clothes for anything in the world.

"Now we wait," Uraraka said, "according to the instructions."

Oh, yeah, they were waiting in his room. There was no gaming system for them to play, seeing as how Bakugou had left his at his parents' house. He had a television and a computer, but that was about it as far as entertainment went. It suddenly occurred to him that he was playing host to Uraraka. How irritating. Before he could even think of saying anything though, Uraraka wandered over towards his laptop where his music app was open. Despite it clearly not being her taste in music, she didn't seem to mind the song playing.

"Wow, you've got a lot of bands on here that I've never heard of," Uraraka said as she sat down to scroll through it.

"Told you I'm not into that pop shit." He was half in mind to snap at her for touching his stuff without asking, but then he did pride himself on his good taste in music. Ever since he'd learned to play the drums when he was younger, he'd really gotten into bands with good drummers and he loved music that was loud and heartstopping, something that matched his quirk and attitude.

"Oh, that's the band whose t-shirt I wore." She clicked on one of their songs, something that started out kind of quiet. Bakugou grinned to himself. He knew this song. It was one of his favorites. "This isn't so-" She was abruptly cut off by the downright explosive chorus, making her jump in the chair in surprise, and he barked out laughter again. Eyes wide, she rubbed her ears. "This is definitely you."

Bakugou came up behind her and pushed her hand to the side so that he could pick another song. "Hey, this is great workout music. It really gets you pumped up and ready to kick ass."

"I can tell," Uraraka replied with a snort. "No wonder you're so awake by the time class starts."

"You need good training music," Bakugou insisted. The song he'd picked wasn't as hardcore as the last one, but it was his favorite running song. "Next time we play Mario Kart, bring your music player. I'll put some good ass music on there. I bet your workouts will be so much better than when you listen to some cheesy boy band."

Uraraka harrumphed. "How do you know that's what I listen to?" She folded her arms across her chest, though it was impossible for her to look threatening with her hair in a blue goop pile on top of her head. "I could listen to hardcore rap or classical music."

"Well, do you?" Bakugou questioned.

There was a beat of silence where Uraraka was staring back at him, but then she dropped her shoulders and looked away. "No."

"Uh huh, that's what I thought." Bakugou snatched his laptop off his desk, unplugging it, and walked over to sit on the edge of his bed. Sighing to herself, Uraraka stood up and followed, sitting down next to him. "I'll introduce you to some good music. You can ask Jirou too if you can't handle my stuff. She's more into music than I am."

Tilting her head, Uraraka gave him a curious look, but she didn't say anything. He wasn't quite sure what that look meant, but since she said nothing, neither did he. Okay, so he wasn't known for being incredibly social and he tended to stick to his core group of friends, but he'd gotten a lot better since his first year when he hadn't even known his classmates' names or quirks.

"Good ass music, huh?" Uraraka prompted.

Bakugou sat up a straighter, excitement bubbling inside of his chest. "Yeah, sit back and prepare to get your socks knocked off."

A smile appeared on Uraraka's face. She pulled her legs up so she could sit cross-legged on the bed and face him while he scrolled through his music to find his favorite stuff. The only other people that actually liked what he listened to were Jirou, Kirishima, and sometimes Tokoyami. This definitely wouldn't be Uraraka's jam, but maybe, just maybe, he'd get to like one or two good bands. Plus, they had the coolest clothing merchandise.

After around thirty minutes of listening to different music and listening to Bakugou rant about bands, Uraraka slipped out so she could wash her hair. It had been a good distraction for both of them. She had asked questions, but mainly paid attention. He'd even found some songs that she really liked, which pleased him. Hell yeah he had good taste in music.

Once she was out of his dorm though, Bakugou felt the absence of her presence, which was weird when she'd never been in here before tonight. It was kind of like when she'd bowed out of playing Mario Kart last Monday in order to work with Todoroki. He fiddled around his room, but found it difficult to concentrate on anything, which was irritating. The match ups were tomorrow and he needed to get his head in the game.

Maybe she had decided to do it tonight in an attempt to throw him off. Would Uraraka be that devious? She was ruthless when it came to their bets. No, he didn't think she'd go that far, not when it came to school. When playing the video game, sure, but she wouldn't go out of her way to sabotage him in their hero work.

The sound of his door opening again caught him off guard and Bakugou turned around with his fists clenched and mouth open to yell at Kirishima-

And then he saw Uraraka and her hair.

"Holy shit," was the first words to slip out of his mouth.

Uraraka's cheeks turned bright pink and she hid her face in her hands. "Is it bad? Oh my god, I bet it's awful. I look so stupid!" She pulled her hands away and took two steps towards him, shoving him in the chest with one hand. He was so taken aback that he stumbled backwards and didn't even complain about her pushing him. "Oh, I hate you for this!" She shook her head. "No, no, I don't. I'm sorry. You made the bet fair and square and you even helped me. I'm just…"

Honestly, Bakugou didn't know what to say. A part of him wanted to laugh because it was fucking hysterical. This was _incredible_ on every level. He had expected her to pick out a dark blue that she could almost hide as black in certain lights, but no, that wasn't Uraraka. This girl went above and beyond. She'd picked a bright teal color that reminded him of the ocean. He was so used to her brown hair that it took him a minute to realize that it was her hair and not a wig. If she hadn't just been in this room, he wouldn't have recognized her at first.

It did look really funny.

And it also looked strangely...cool.

"Have you not seen it?" Bakugou asked.

Uraraka shook her head. "I was too nervous, so I turned my back to the mirror…"

"Tch, I didn't know you were scared of such little things," Bakugou said as he walked behind her and pushed her towards the mirror in his room. For a second, Uraraka dug her heels in the ground to stop him, but then she closed her eyes and let him push her. "Now look."

She opened her eyes. Dead silence afterwards followed for a solid minute.

"Everyone is going to think I've lost my mind," Uraraka declared, gawking at her reflection. "I look so weird."

Bakugou smirked. "You're already weird, Round Face."

Instead of turning around, Uraraka glared at his reflection in the mirror since he was standing behind her. All Bakugou did was snort and step back as she finally moved to face him. Gods, he couldn't even describe what she looked like right now. Weird, yeah, if only because he'd never seen her with any other hair color than her natural brown and this was such a drastic change. It blew his mind a little. Her hair was teal. Somehow, the color made those little pink circles on her cheeks stand out even more and the brown of her eyes darker.

"You look like some party girl or something," Bakugou finally decided.

Uraraka threw her hands up and made a very loud frustrated noise. "Everyone is gonna laugh at me!"

"To be fair, the worst offender of that would be me," Bakugou pointed out. She made a sound like she agreed with him there. "Deku and Iida will be too nice to say anything negative. Ashido will probably like it. Honestly, I'm not sure if Todoroki will even notice."

"None of this is making me feel any better," Uraraka told him. Then she put her hands on her hips and put the most determined expression on her face. The teal hair totally lessened the impact of it though and he had to bite his bottom lip to keep from smirking again. "This is just fuel to the fire, Bakugou. You and Sero better watch out tomorrow because we're coming for you."

"Oh yeah?" Bakugou stepped closer to her so that he was in her space, nearly touching chests with her, and stared her down hard. "You think you got what it takes?"

She didn't so much as blink. "I know I've got it. You're going down."

"You wanna bet on that?"

This time, when Uraraka grinned, it was most definitely devious. "I can do that."

"Okay." Bakugou folded his arms across his chest. "So what's it gonna be?"

Uraraka tapped her chin thoughtfully and then poked him in the chest. "If I win, you've gotta buy me dinner. And I'm not talking fast food either. I want a real meal. I'll be hungry after kicking your ass."

Gods, she was acting downright cocky, like he normally would. This was more competitive than when they were playing Mario Kart. It was like when she'd taken his shirt off and thrown it at him in the laundry room. Just sheer determination and the will to beat him at his own game. Maybe that teal hair had gone to her head.

"You really think you and Todoroki are hot shit, huh?" Bakugou sneered, but his blood was singing. He felt electric, like he was ready to do this match up fight right now, buzzing with energy and excitement. "Let's see. If I win…" He thought about what he could bet. What did he want her to do? A terrible idea popped into his head. He must have made a face because Uraraka narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "You've gotta wear that U.A. cheerleading costume on Saturday."

Uraraka's jaw dropped. "Bakugou!" She pursed her lips together and tilted her head up in a superior manner. "You pervert."

"I am not!" Bakugou exclaimed, his face getting warm. She laughed. Damn her. She'd wanted to get a reaction out of him. "It'll be embarrassing and you know it!" The last time he'd made a bet about her clothes, she had somehow managed to turn it around on him. He could still easily picture what she looked like wearing his shirt. (He could also picture her in that cheerleading outfit.) "You can't make a fashion statement out of that, plus your hair."

"Oh, I won't have to," Uraraka countered, "because I'm going to win." She gathered her things and slid her bag over her shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, Bakugou. Prepare to eat my dust."

If she thought that she was even going to come close, Uraraka had another thing coming. However, instead of feeling angry over her being so confident that she would win tomorrow's team fight, Bakugou was elated. Sure, he'd been pumped up before and had been ready to kick ass, but now he was seriously gunning for it. Uraraka had lit a fire under him, but that was more fuel for him. She better watch herself because he was ready.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes:** I hate writing action scenes. This was supposed to be a fun, light story for me to write. And then I wrote myself into a corner to write an action scene. I actually had some fun with this, mainly because of Uraraka and Todoroki. I should've focused on Sero and Bakugou more since it's from Bakugou's POV, but once I started coming up with ideas for Uraraka and Todoroki, I just ran with it.

* * *

Every team was placed in a different part of the arena, all of them ready to be let loose once the buzzer sounded. Cementoss had done an incredible job in helping build the place. They'd even been allowed to wear their hero costumes. It always irritated Bakugou when they were stuck in their U.A. athletic uniforms, if only because it was like the teachers weren't allowing them to reach their full potential. Bakugou was ready to blow everyone out of the water. He didn't want to go easy on anyone and his hero costume allowed for just that.

Before being split up, he had managed to catch eyes with Uraraka. It was hard to miss her with that teal hair of hers now. Of course she'd been standing at Todoroki's side, unusually silent as many of the other teams chatted away. He had actually commented on her hair, saying that it reminded him of the ocean, which had put Bakugou in a sour mood since he'd had the same thought (but hadn't said it). She had looked his way, seemingly by accident as she scanned the area, but then stopped then when her gaze landed on him. He smirked at her and she stuck her tongue out before putting her helmet on and turning back to say something to Todoroki.

Thirty minutes later, the game was afoot and well under way.

Bakugou and Sero had been practically raining fire and explosions down on people. They'd already managed to take down two teams alone: Mineta and Jirou (the latter of whom might have been grateful) and Hagakure and Sato. Even if he hadn't been his first choice, Sero proved to be a very cooperative partner who seemed to know when Bakugou needed backup when he had trouble admitting it. That intuitiveness helped them out quite a bit since he rarely had to ask Sero for assistance.

However, that was not the end goal of this fight. Elsewhere in the arena were his other competition. Despite the weird match up in their quirks, Deku and Ashido were still out there fighting. A large concrete wall that nearly reached the ceiling collapsed behind them. Freaking Deku. Not to mention that he knew Uraraka and Todoroki were still in it. Todoroki left his mark behind obviously, both ice and fire. He still tended to stick to using the ice half of his quirk, despite more or less coming to terms with his fire.

Honestly, Bakugou didn't know who he wanted to fight more, but in the end, he wasn't given a choice because Uraraka came to him.

They rounded a corner and there she was, wiping dirty off the faceguard of her mask. A grin cut across Bakugou's face and he launched himself in the air and called out, "On me!" at Sero, so that he'd connect a piece of tape to Bakugou's leg and get dragged into the air with him. Once they were at an appropriate height, he tore off the tape and grabbed hold of it and then twisted his other hand and set off a fire of rapid explosions so that it spun him and Sero in the air like a tornado. He pulled on the tape as hard as he could, letting out a shout as he threw Sero in Uraraka's direction.

The speed and suddenness of the attack took Uraraka off guard. She barely had time to react, activating her quirk on herself and leaping out of the way so that she was floating up as Sero came down. He anticipated the move though and used his quirk tape to snatch her by the ankle and jerk her back down to the ground. Before she could hit the ground hard though, a spike of Todoroki's ice sliced through the tape. The sudden change sent her reeling, flipping backwards, and Bakugou used his quirk to rocket himself in her direction.

I've got you now, Round Face! Bakugou thought triumphantly, but then another wall of ice appeared, not at him but behind Uraraka. She landed on her feet, her body horizontal with the ground and at least twenty feet in the air. Instead of trying to get down though, she kicked off hard, aiming directly towards Bakugou. It caught him off guard, but he saw her coming and he threw one arm out to aim at her and shouted, "Come on! You can do better than that!" Sure, she was wearing a pleased look on her face, but honestly, she should've known better than to fight him head on.

And then she deactivated her quirk, dropping mid-air so that his explosion hit a chunk of ice that appeared behind her and caused him to crash into the ground, rolling in the dirt and broken ice. Meanwhile, she slid down the ice like it was a slide, coming up behind Sero, who just barely avoided getting touched by her by attaching some of his tape to the same ice wall that she'd come down to pull himself up. Bakugou aimed and let off a large explosion in his frustration, which forced Todoroki to use his fire to cut through it. Sero had to pull himself out of the way again to avoid getting hit.

Finally. Bakugou always took it as a matter of pride to get Todoroki to use his fire quirk.

Todoroki followed it up with a massive wall of ice not unlike the one he'd created to help give Bakugou an escape route from the League of Villains when he'd been kidnapped. It had been his maximum at the time, but he had grown further in his strength since then. If Bakugou knew how to do anything though, it was break and so that was what he'd do.

"Spiral!" Bakugou demanded.

Sero gave him a leery look, but then he'd seen this move of Bakugou's only once before during their first Sports Festival in Bakugou's fight against Todoroki. Back then, he'd used his own explosions to spin him in a tornado, which built up the oxygen in the air that surrounded him. The oxygen made his explosion akin to a missile strike, but it also forced him to use his quirk so that the last one wasn't as strong as it could be.

This time, Sero wrapped Bakugou in his cellophane tape, flicked him in the air, and jerked hard. The action caused a spiral much faster than he could've made himself and when he slammed hard into that ice and ground with an explosion, it was more massive than anyone could have anticipated, so strong that it blew even Sero back. The ice shattered around him in thousands of pieces, his explosion doing more than just creating a huge hole in the wall. It completely obliterated the ice wall, causing it to topple over.

Except it didn't fall to the ground. Nothing did.

Everything was floating.

The smoke and steam cleared and that was when Bakugou saw her. He saw Uraraka. Scuffed up from the blowback of his explosion, the face mask of her helmet cracked, but still standing and the pads of her fingertips pressed together. What sucked the air out of Bakugou's lungs wasn't her stance, but the look in her eyes, a fire so intense burning in her eyes that it rivaled his own. Despite being in the middle of battle, he gawked at her.

One of the proudest grins that Bakugou had ever seen slid onto Uraraka's strained face and she said, "Release."

It wasn't just a meteor shower, like the one she'd done during their Sports Festival fight. Todoroki had created an insane wall of ice and Bakugou's massive explosion had sent shards of ice everywhere. It didn't just rain down on them; it fell everywhere in the arena like a intense hailstorm. There was little to no escaping it for anyone. He could hear surprised cries and panicked shouts throughout the arena.

Even worse for Bakugou, because he had pushed his quirk to its limit with that last explosion in his left arm, he only had his right to protect him. Except this time, there was too much falling ice for him to completely come out unscathed and he knew it. Some chunks of ice were much larger than others, not to mention the huge fucking piece from the top that fell over like a bulldozed skyscraper.

"Find cover!" Bakugou screamed at Sero before he raised his right arm directly above him and pulled the pin of the gauntlet. At that angle, he had to make sure that his knees were bent and his arm was straight so that it absorbed the shock of the explosion's blowback. When he let it off, shattering the ice even further, the explosion was so powerful that it forced him down to one knee.

Even then, it wasn't enough to take out all the ice, just the worst of it, and he had to throw his arms over his head to protect himself, using the gauntlets as shields. Chunks of ice pummeled him, some tiny and harmless, some sharp and cutting, all of them dropping with a sense of revenge, as if they were making up for the gravity that had been briefly taken from them.

By the time it ended, Bakugou was folded on the ground, his entire body feeling battered, bruised, and cut up. He pushed himself up though, determined to not give up so easily. She was going to have to bring a whole building down on him before he gave up. That couldn't be said for everyone else. A loud buzzer went off before a screen showed that two other teams had been taken out by Uraraka's and Todoroki's hailstorm. Shoji and Ojiro, along with Kaminari and Tsuyu, had somehow been defeated. They hadn't even been the main targets.

When he looked around, Bakugou saw that Uraraka had shielded herself with a large piece of concrete, gripping it with her fingertips so that it floated above her head like an umbrella. Todoroki had used his ice quirk to build a quick shelter for himself. When he had created that massive ice wall, she must have touched it before dashing away, knowing full well that Bakugou would get pissed and would do everything in his power to break it apart. They'd used his own quirk against him.

All Bakugou could see was red (oh, he had blood dripping into his eye from a cut over his eyebrow) and that grin on her face.

"Sorry I'm not sorry!" Uraraka called out cheerfully before she fucking chucked that hunk of concrete at him. He blew it up with an explosion, dust and debris spattering him, but would've been struck by a blast of fire from Todoroki if not for Sero pulling him back at the last second with his tape. He too had taken a beating from that hailstorm, bleeding and bruised, but he must have found cover before it took him out completely.

Sero gripped his right forearm and cringed. He must've been hit hard there and was favoring his left. Recovery Girl was going to have a field day with them over today. "Damn, who knew Uraraka could have that kind of power on a scale like that?"

It irritated him, but Bakugou should've known. Yeah, they'd only been playing Mario Kart together and making these dumb bets, but he had seen how relentless she was, how driven, how determined to prove herself. He had seen her push herself far beyond what anyone expected of her before. She wasn't just here to make friends and have a good time. She was here to become a hero. For what reasons, he didn't know and he didn't really care. All that mattered was that she was here and she was giving it a hundred percent.

As furious as he was for letting himself get caught in her hailstorm, Bakugou was elated as well. Now _this_ was the kind of fight he'd been looking forward to with her.

"We have to contain Todoroki," Bakugou said through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, I tried that once," Sero replied dryly. "It didn't end well for me."

"You didn't have me at your side back then," Bakugou pointed out.

When they peered around from their hiding spot inside a hollowed out building though, Uraraka and Todoroki weren't anywhere to be seen. Bakugou didn't think they were just hiding either. They were fucking gone. After that show, they must have decided to move onto trying to take out other teams instead of getting stuck in a exhausting, drawn out fight with Bakugou and Sero. After all, it wasn't just the last team standing that won. It was also the team that took out the most people.

"Those damn bastards!" Bakugou exclaimed, resisting the urge to use his quirk to rocket himself around the arena in search of them. He wanted to take them down. If someone else did it, especially Deku and Ashido, he would be infuriated. Still, their strategy was the right one. It made the most sense. Take out the weaker teams before moving back to the strongest. Even if they weren't the last one standing, if they had more takedowns, they could still win. It was why hiding and waiting until the last minute wouldn't work. "Let's get a move on! We have to catch up!"

Even if they'd had no takedowns before crossing paths with Bakugou and Sero, that little stunt of Uraraka's had helped them catch up. Two teams in one move and Bakugou had technically helped them. They had counted on him going all out. He did half the work for them. A part of him wondered who had come up with the idea. Most people would assume it was Todoroki, but no, Bakugou knew in his gut that it had been Uraraka. He couldn't have said why, but that look on her face, like he had played right into her hand, said everything. It was much more her style than Todoroki's.

Plain and simple, she'd tricked him. It felt like that moment when she'd walked into the common area with his shirt and looking better than ever before all over again, but twenty times worse.

His fury over the whole situation did help propel him forward. Bakugou struggled to remember a time when his quirk had shown so _bright_. Through some ingenuity and sneakiness with Sero's tape, they managed to trip up Iida. Would Bakugou ever forget the way Iida had flipped through the air and crashed upside down into a wall? (Not likely.) With his partner out of the way, Bakugou came up from behind to attack Tokoyami from behind before he could take out Sero. Their quirks were too opposite. The trick was to get Dark Shadow before it got you and using Sero as the upfront bait had been their best bet.

Straightening up after restraining Tokoyami enough to consider it as a takedown, Bakugou barely had time to take a breath before Sero shouted, "Bakugou, watch out!" He looked up and spotted Deku coming down on him from above with a small percentage of his quirk activated. Bakugou barrel-rolled out of the way in the nick of time, popping up and shooting off an explosion that Deku side-swiped to dodge.

"I thought you were hiding somewhere, Deku!" Bakugou taunted.

"No, just staying away from you until closer to the end." Deku smiled. It was so infuriating. However, he did look a little rough around the edges. He hadn't gone untouched either. "The hailstorm attack from Uraraka and Todoroki almost got me though. Judging from the explosion, I'm guessing it was because of you."

Bakugou clenched his jaw. He didn't like Deku knowing that without being there, but then he was a damn nerd that analyzed everyone's quirks. A battle royale like this was right up his alley. He knew their quirks and how they would compare with and against each other. That was frustrating too, but it had made him realize a while back that knowing the people around him came in handy. Not that he would ever admit that.

Distracted by his fight with Deku, who took up so much attention now that he was able to control his quirk better, Bakugou couldn't afford to look away to see how Sero was faring against Ashido. He could hear the two of them fighting, along Ashido laughing and Sero complaining. His tape allowed him a lot of maneuverability, but Bakugou knew that out of nearly everyone in their class, Ashido had the best reflexes.

At one point, Sero did manage to get a hold of her, but then he yelped when Ashido's acid burned through his tape and slid down it to touch his elbow. Still, she was more brawn than brains, so Bakugou knew that it was best to focus on Deku and let Sero deal with her.

The two of them crashed together multiple times with Bakugou getting an explosive hit on Deku once that sent him flying backwards. He managed to dig his feet into the ground and slide to a stop, but not without some difficulty and pain. When he pushed himself back upright, there was an angry, red burn mark on his neck from where the explosion had touched skin.

However, Bakugou was thrown for a loop when Deku came flying back with superspeed. Bakugou took aim again, but then Deku dropped into a slide like in baseball to duck an explosion from Bakugou. When he popped back up behind Bakugou, he gripped Bakugou's left gauntlet and pulled hard. The move would've pulled Bakugou's arm out of socket if he hadn't slipped his arm out of the gauntlet. It was a huge loss too, considering that it had just filled with enough nitroglycerin sweat for a huge blast. Deku must have realized it.

"Give that back!" Bakugou yelled, charging towards Deku, who threw the gauntlet to the side. Attacking him head on was a stupid idea, so when Deku reached out to grab him and counterattack, Bakugou threw his hands down and launched himself straight up into the air at a ninety degree angle. Deku turned on his heels, expecting Bakugou to land behind him, but instead he went straight down on top of his shoulders. Planting one hand on the ground like he was doing a one-handed backspring, he shot off an explosion with his other hand so that he had the momentum and speed to flip Deku over him and slam him front first onto the ground.

Luckily, Bakugou's knee pads took the brunts on his landing, so he was able to jump to his feet quickly and ran in the direction of his discarded gauntlet. If he could just get a hold of that, he'd be able to take Deku out. Right before he reached it though, a ball of fire struck the ground between him and the gauntlet and he had to slide to a halt to keep from getting hit. More fire began to rain down on them and he had to once again duck for cover.

When he was given the chance to look up, he damn near hissed. Floating above them like some sort of hot air balloon was Todoroki with Uraraka holding onto his feet. They were too high up for Bakugou to reach them from the ground with his explosions, so he took off to the side, zigzagging through the air. His arms were beginning to ache from the constant use of propulsion, but he ignored it. He had to get up there. If he stayed down here with Todoroki above them, they'd all be sitting ducks.

Todoroki moved his right hand and Bakugou immediately raised his to counterattack, but instead of attacking Bakugou with ice, he forced balls of ice around Uraraka's heavy boots. The sudden weight dragged them back down to earth and out of Bakugou's reach. Fifteen feet or so from the ground, Todoroki sliced his hand through the air to create another ice slide and pulled Uraraka up with his right hand and wrapped it around her waist so that he could get them safely to the ground. While Todoroki let off a large burst of fire to keep Bakugou and Deku away, she made quick work of shattering the ice and he hastily melted the rest.

Before Todoroki could fully make another spike of ice, Bakugou shattered through it and landed back on the ground. He picked up a chunk of the ice and used his explosion to throw it hard. Todoroki didn't have the chance to dodge it, so he tried to create another shield of ice to block it, but it was propelled too fast and broke through it, catching him in the gut and knocking him back. Bakugou was panting from the effort, but he smirked. Todoroki should've used fire. It would've melted the ice. But he almost always relied on his ice quirk to defend himself.

Too focused on trying to take Todoroki down, Bakugou had forgotten about Ashido and Sero. When he rushed to finish off Todoroki, he stepped in something that had him sliding and losing balance before he crashed into something hard, knocking him to the ground Only when his shoes began to smoke and his face sting did he realize that he'd stepped in Ashido's acid. She'd made a line of it and then thrown an acid veil at him. Whenever she changed the consistency of her acid, she could turn it into a block of something stronger than concrete. As hard-headed and muscular as he was, he wasn't as solid as concrete and his body felt it too.

Fuck, Ashido must have somehow taken Sero out. Bakugou had not anticipated that.

From his spot on the ground, Bakugou angrily shot a large explosion in Ashido's direction, but she used her acid to slide to the side fast and flipped out of the way. Damn her and her insane acrobatic abilities. She'd started working on them a lot more with Aizawa over the past year, using her higher skill to her advantage against everyone else.

Concentrating, Bakugou aimed at her again as she slid around him, but then changed the direction and blasted the ground in front of her. Unable to dodge it in time, the explosion and broken concrete caught her off guard and threw her into the air. She landed hard on the ground, groaning and staying on the ground when she came to a stop. To the side, Deku and Todoroki were going at it, ice being created and shattered, fire raging and then being sliced through with wind created by Deku's attacks.

Bakugou didn't care about them for once though. Let those two take each other out. With Sero and Ashido down and Todoroki and Deku fighting each other, that left one other person for him to watch out for. Uraraka. He was expecting her to try to sneak up on him and float him, but he didn't see her anywhere. Where the hell was she? His eyes swung around the area and then his heart dropped into his stomach when he realized that there was also something else missing from the scene.

His left grenade gauntlet, the one filled with dangerously explosive nitroglycerin.

"Todoroki!"

Bakugou jerked his head up and around to find Uraraka standing on top of a large concrete construction. She must have floated herself up there. Her face was pale except for rosy cheeks, the use of her quirk on herself taking its toll, reminding him of when they'd first started playing Mario Kart together. She was scuffed up to high hell and heen forced to abandon her helmet at one point, her hair a tangled and wild mess.

And in her hands: his damn gauntlet.

Her plan hit him like a train. "Deku, stop Todoroki!" Bakugou shouted. It irritated the hell out of him to rely on Deku for even a second, but he didn't have the time to stop both of them, not with Uraraka so far away. Her eyes widened right before he launched himself towards her with a massive explosion. It made him almost as fast as a bullet, but he couldn't change his direction once he did it. He reached out to snatch her.

But it was too late.

She threw the gauntlet in the air and, without gravity, it went soaring wide over them. A line of fire from Todoroki cut through the air and struck the gauntlet before Deku could tackle Todoroki to the ground. The second the fire hit the gauntlet, it exploded.

It wasn't like when Bakugou used it and he could control the explosion to go in a direction. This was like setting off a bomb. It blew everyone back. Because he was in the air, Bakugou took almost the entire brunt of it. He tried to set off an explosion to knock himself out of the way, but he didn't do it quick enough and the explosion struck him, sending him crashed straight into a building. It knocked the wind out of his lungs and he gasped. As he began to fall to the ground, he felt the muscles in his arms twitch from overuse. There was no way he would be able to make a safe landing.

A hand clasped around his wrist and he stopped. Dizzy, head pounding, and feeling close to blacking out, Bakugou lifted his head and connected eyes with Uraraka. He must have crashed into the construction that she'd been standing in. Shit, that meant the explosion had knocked him at least thirty feet back. For a moment, he almost questioned how she was able to hold him up with just one hand, but then his body began to float in the air. She'd activated her quirk on him the second she'd grabbed him.

Maybe he looked confused, although he was mostly dazed from the explosion, because Uraraka told him, "I'm not gonna just let you fall." She canceled out her own gravity and then grabbed a small rock. It had to have weighed than less than a pound, but it pulled them to the ground safely. She made sure that he was on the ground, setting the rock on his chest, before she released her quirk and returned their gravity. Almost immediately, she collapsed back on her ass, her arms shakily propping herself up, and then leaned over to puke.

"That...looks familiar…" Bakugou muttered through the pain.

Uraraka wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Ha, ha, very funny."

The buzzer went off again, twice, announcing two teams had been taken out and then Bakugou watched as his and Sero's team was placed on the screen, alongside Deku and Ashido's. "Team Todoroki and Uraraka win," Aizawa deadpanned over the intercom.

With a growl too tired to be considered angry, Bakugou dropped his head back onto the ground. Even if he wanted to fight, he wasn't sure if he could. His arms were aching something fierce, but it was his head that was pounding and he was still catching his breath from having it knocked right out of him. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Uraraka beaming, her smile so bright that it was almost blinding. She looked like utter hell and her teal hair was still so fucking ridiculous, but she looked…

She looked stunning.

When Uraraka turned her gaze to him, Bakugou found himself swallowing a lump in his throat. "Looks like you owe me that dinner," she proclaimed gleefully. He couldn't find it in him to say anything in response. He could only grunt and look away from her, embarrassed and angry and...pleased. He hated losing - couldn't stand it for the life of him - and he'd been stewing over this loss for months. But if it had to happen, this was the best way, he reasoned. In spectacular fashion.

Even when Uraraka stood up on shaky legs and offered a hand to him, Bakugou didn't shove it away or ignore it like he normally would. He took it, letting her help him back up. He staggered into her, but she caught him with her hands on his chest. There was a look of concern on her face, but he waved it away and stood up straight as he pulled away from her.

"You should check with Recovery Girl for a concussion," Uraraka told him.

"I'll be fine," Bakugou replied gruffly. His eyes scanned the area over her head and he spotted Sero sitting up in the rabble. The other boy was rubbing elbows and cringing. "I gotta check on Sero."

"Of course." Uraraka sounded like she knew that Bakugou was avoiding the idea of getting checked on, but she wasn't going to argue with him.

His eyes flickered down to hers. "Go celebrate with Icy Hot."

"Were you surprised?" Uraraka asked curiously.

 _You're just filled with them, aren't you?_ Bakugou thought.

Out loud, he replied, "You came up with some decent ideas." She smiled again. He smirked at her. "I wouldn't celebrate too much though because I'm picking what we eat. I hope you like spicy food."

Uraraka sighed, as if she'd expected it, and shrugged her shoulders before flouncing off in Todoroki's direction. Bakugou watched with a guarded expression as she flung her arms around Todoroki's shoulder in excitement and Todoroki actually hugged her back. Todoroki looked somewhat dazed, having must have taken a hit from the explosion as well. There was ice everywhere. He'd probably tried to shield himself as best as he could, but that his fire had reacted particularly well with Bakugou's nitroglycerin.

Before he could turn away completely, he caught eyes with Deku, who had apparently been watching Uraraka's and his whole exchange. Bakugou shot him a scowl and Deku held his hands up in surrender, as if to say that he didn't mean anything by it. Whatever. He couldn't have heard what Bakugou and Uraraka had been talking about. It was none of his business. Bakugou stomped in Sero's direction, forcing Deku out of his mind.

"Did we win?" Sero asked as Bakugou helped him stand.

Bakugou grit his teeth. "No."

"Oh." Sero looked around and spotted Uraraka talking excitedly to Todoroki. Bakugou refused to look back. He'd caught an almost soft smile on Todoroki's face and that had been enough. Sero gave Bakugou a leery look. "You're not gonna, uh...explode me, are you?"

Letting out a sigh, Bakugou said, "No," but his voice was too quiet and it made him mad. It was just from the exhaustion that came after a fight. Nothing else. Normally, whenever he lost, he found himself either frozen with rage or burning with it, but right now, he couldn't manage that fire. No doubt it would come to him later, but he was too exhausted physically and mentally. It had to be the concussion. Maybe he should go see Recovery Girl.

Bakugou glanced back in Uraraka's direction where she was helping Ashido up to her feet and then walked away. It had been a good fight. That was all that mattered.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes:** We are coming close to the end! I'm thinking two more chapters tops after this one. I know, I know. It's sad. But I'm really feeling like a conclusion is nigh and I've got about nine Kacchako fic requests sitting in my inbox. Also, Kaminari and Jirou are so much fun to write.

* * *

There was buying Uraraka food and then there was buying Uraraka dinner.

It was different than when she had bet him to buy Todoroki's lunch. At least with that he could buy it and then dash. All in all, it took maybe a minute and then it was done. All of the repercussions had happened afterwards. As excruciating as it had been, it hadn't taken long at all. Wait, buy, avoid eye contact with Todoroki, leave, and done. There had been much less decisions when it came to that bet than this one. No, this one was the biggest one so far and he'd lost it due to getting beat at his own game.

The first matter had been figuring out where to eat. There had been a few places to choose from, but Bakugou went with his gut and picked one of his favorite places. It was a nice place, but not fancy or anything like that. The best part about it was the food. It had some of the best spicy ramen out there. Bakugou had promised her that he was going to pick something spicy for them to eat and he was sticking to his guns. If he had to buy her dinner, then it was going to at least be food that he liked and wanted to eat.

With the where out of the way, the "when" had to be decided. He had to corner Uraraka to figure that one out since they needed a time that fit both their schedules. It made sense to do it on a weekend night since that would give the most leeway with time. They both had an influx of free time again since they weren't training with their teammate for the team battle royale, but since he had learned that he could've been using that time for more, he was eager to fill it up with something again.

He finally managed to catch her alone when everyone was leaving for lunch. She had to run back to the dorms real quick to get a few things for their afternoon classes before eating. He probably could've let her know that he was trying to get her attention before chasing after her and tapping her on the back, but he couldn't even be mad at the way she'd jumped and reacted by floating him into the sky. She'd blushed furiously as he'd laughed at her and floated upside down.

After sorting that out, they figured that they'd go on Saturday around six, but that had been a debacle in itself. She hadn't stopped blushing the entire time. He didn't know what her problem was. It was just food. If she was going to be weird about this, then she didn't have to go. The main issue would be keeping other people from finding out. They couldn't both just leave at the same time. Everyone would figure out that they were going somewhere together and then there would be a ton of questions lobbed at them from every side that Bakugou was not about to answer or deal with.

In the end, Bakugou came up with the excuse about visiting his parents. He did it every now and then. Plus, he could bring back a few more games for them to play that Kaminari didn't have. The restaurant was by his house. He'd just swing by afterwards and then no one would be able to question him. It was the perfect alibi. Uraraka's excuse was a little more difficult, but she'd told her friends that she had to go to the store. When Deku had offered to assist her, she had told him that she had to get feminine products and that had quieted any questions that Deku or Iida might have for her. It was really quite clever.

The last decision, which Bakugou hadn't even considered would be a problem, was what he was going to wear. It was an hour before he was supposed to leave - and somehow it was a big fucking problem.

Bakugou had never really cared about what he wore before. He wore what he wanted and that was that. His style had been the same for a while and probably wouldn't change until adulthood. If it was comfortable, black, and just loose enough, then he liked it. Maybe he had too many band t-shirts, but to be honest, so did most teenage boys. He didn't want to just wear a band or a skull t-shirt though. But he didn't want to seem like he was trying too hard either. It wasn't like they were eating at some fancy shmancy place.

After hem-hawing over the decision for an aggravating amount of time, he settled on jeans and a loose button up shirt that he left undone at the top. Whatever. That was fine. It was believable that he'd wear something different since his mom would get onto him about his clothes. Besides, he liked this shirt, even if he didn't wear it often.

"You leaving, man?" Kirishima asked from the couch in the common area.

"Yeah, that devil woman is expecting me before dinner," Bakugou replied gruffly as he slung his backpack over one shoulder.

Ashido sighed and rubbed her stomach as she sunk on the couch next to Kirishima. "A home-cooked meal sounds so good right now. Bring me some leftovers!"

"As if," Bakugou scoffed. His eyes swept the room and connected with Uraraka's. She was sitting at a table doing homework with Deku. As soon as he saw a little smile appear on her face, he jerked his gaze away and walked out.

Because he was so caught up in his own head, he didn't even notice Kaminari and Jirou in the corner of the room, Unlike everyone else who were dressed in comfortable clothes to stay in, both of them were suspiciously dressed to go out, although neither one of them had said anything to anyone. Deku and Kirishima might have missed the look and smile between Bakugou and Uraraka, but they hadn't and it set off all the warning whistles.

Bakugou was standing outside the restaurant, scrolling through the hero newsfeed, when he heard a laugh that sounded like Uraraka's. He glanced up and caught her walking in his direction, but instead of looking at him, she was on her phone. At this distance, he couldn't tell who she was talking to, but there was a content smile on her face and her eyes were bright. A second later, her eyes swung over to him and that smile broadened as she waved at him. He clenched his phone tighter and then slid it into his back pocket.

She was wearing high-waisted black shorts and a white button up shirt with combo boots. For once, she was the one wearing boots while he wore sneakers. Go figure. He'd seen her wear that outfit quite a few times, but it was only natural since they'd been living in the dorms for over a year. It must have been one of her favorites, probably because it looked good on her.

"Okay, love you too, bye!" Uraraka hung up and put her phone away. "My mom."

"You tell her what you were up to?" Bakugou questioned.

Uraraka grinned up at him. "Oh, that I was going out for dinner with the great Katsuki Bakugou?" He folded his arms across his chest and grunted. No way was he going to answer that. She rolled her eyes. "No, she just called to see how the match went yesterday. Don't worry; your secret is safe with me. No one knows you've lowered yourself to hang out with me."

Bakugou furrowed his brow. "I'm not lowering myself."

An entirely too pleased expression appeared on Uraraka's face. "I'm glad we agree, seeing as how Todoroki and I kicked yours and Sero's asses in that team match."

"You didn't kick our asses," Bakugou insisted irritably.

Uraraka actually giggled. He didn't remember her making that sound before all of this. She waved it away, pulling herself together, and then asked, "So where are we eating?"

"Here," Bakugou said, turning and walking inside.

"What?" Uraraka rushed in after him, suddenly much more demure. She'd gone from all confident to anxious in less than a second. It was a startling transition. "Are you joking?"

"No." Bakugou glanced back at her. "Why?"

" _Why_?" Uraraka shot back at him. "Because it's _expensive._ "

Bakugou made his typical "tch" sound and turned to tell the host that he needed a table for two. He followed to host like nothing was strange while Uraraka followed him like security was going to pop up and kick her out. Even when they sat down at a table and ordered their drinks from an overly friendly server, Uraraka looked like she might jump out of her chair and bolt.

"What the hell is your problem?" Bakugou demanded as he looked at the menu. Seriously, it wasn't expensive. He and his parents had come here often. He could've taken her to his mother's favorite restaurant. Now that was one fancy as hell place. The woman would always make him dress up and attempt to calm his hair whenever they went there. It was a whole fiasco.

"When I made the bet, I didn't mean…" Uraraka fiddled with the ends of the tablecloth. Her cheeks were pinker than normal and she kept tugging on her hair. It was still bright teal. She was clearly feeling a lot more self-conscious about it now that they were out in public. A few other customers were giving her odd and even displeased looks, but he just glared at them until they looked away. Assholes. "I mean, I know I said that fast food wouldn't count, but this…"

"It's not a big deal," Bakugou told her. "I've been craving this anyways, so quit acting weird."

Uraraka bit her lip. "Are you sure?"

Bakugou took a quick glimpse of her and then looked back down at the menu. "Yeah, I'm sure. And remember, I'm ordering for us both, so you better get some extra water."

When the waiter came back with their drinks, Bakugou ordered two things of spicy ramen ("Don't skimp out on the spicy.") and then handed off the menus as he stared Uraraka down. She wore a determined yet nervous look on her face. He honestly couldn't tell if it was concerning the food he just ordered them or if it was the place itself. It really wasn't that fancy. He would've warned her ahead of time if they were going somewhere nice.

"Are you gonna be like this the whole time?" Bakugou asked.

"No." Uraraka sat up straight and smoothed out her expression. "I just feel kind of guilty, okay? I didn't realize you'd spend so much money on this bet."

"You earned it," Bakugou told her without thinking. Uraraka's eyes widened and he coughed. She had done a great job in the team fights. He didn't think he'd ever be able to forget the way she had looked while her quirk had held up all that ice above their heads before raining a hailstorm down on their heads or the sight of her on top of that building holding one of his nitroglycerin-filled gauntlets or even how she'd grabbed him by the wrist to keep him from falling. But he couldn't say that. "Besides, you had to buy the stuff to dye your hair. Consider us even."

"I'm probably not gonna feel that way after we eat," Uraraka said. "How spicy is this stuff anyways?"

Bakugou smirked. "You'll see."

"Turning my own bet on me doesn't sound very fair," Uraraka pointed out.

You should've thought of that before you wore my shirt better than me. The thought popped into Bakugou's head unbidden and he almost choked on his water.

Out loud, he said, "I'm just trying to make the best of this."

"Nah, you're just a sore loser," Uraraka threw back at him cheekily as she leaned back in her seat. He narrowed his eyes at her. Oh, she was in a mood today. The spice level was going to knock that cockiness right out of her. She wouldn't be able to tease him then. "But hey, I can't pass up a free meal. And I worked _hard_ to earn this."

"You pulled out all the stops. That was for sure." Bakugou felt himself simmering down even though he'd planned on being fired up this whole night.

Uraraka perked up. "You think so? I was worried that I'd get points docked for being too reckless or dangerous."

At that, Bakugou actually laughed. "Have you seen the way I fight?"

"Good point." She picked up her water and peered at him over the rim as she paused before taking a sip. "We knew that you'd get frustrated if Todoroki blocked you from us with an ice wall and I remembered the way you broke through his at our first Sports Festival."

"And that meteor trick you tried to use on me before," Bakugou added. "New and improved."

"It took much less effort on my part this time," Uraraka said, shrugging her shoulders. "You two did most of the work. I only had to hold it for a few seconds and I could stay still."

"It was very clever," Bakugou told her honestly.

She looked terribly happy at being told this, but it had been clever. Of course at the time he had been furious, but the after surviving it, he had been thrilled. He knew that people were already looking at him, Deku, and Todoroki as the top three of their class, but that wasn't it. Deku wasn't even in the top three academically. Uraraka was somewhere in the middle. But those moves the other day? Those had been brilliant. She and Todoroki had played them all like fiddles and he knew that Uraraka was the more clever and creative one of the two. Besides Todoroki, she had taken all the top students out.

"Thanks, Bakugou," Uraraka said, finally looking more at ease. "It means a lot to me. Your opinion really matters."

And damn her if that didn't make Bakugou feel a certain way. It wasn't pride or arrogance. It was...warmth. He didn't know what to do with him, so he grumbled in response and took a gulp of his water. She was far too good at throwing him off his game.

"This is a stupid idea," Jirou muttered under her breath.

"Then why did you agree to it?" Kaminari hissed back at her.

"Because it sounded like a good idea at the time!"

Said idea had been following Bakugou and Uraraka when both of them had suspiciously made last minute plans to go off campus on a Saturday night. Both of their excuses had been written off by Kaminari at first. Bakugou visited his parents every now and then and he had mentioned before that he had more games at home that they could play on Kaminari's gaming system. And he made it a point to never question a girl when she needed feminine products. It was something he didn't need to get into. However, Jirou had said that was a lie. He didn't know how she knew that Uraraka was lying and he didn't question that either. Some things were better left unknown.

Unlike Bakugou and Uraraka, who had left at different times, Kaminari and Jirou had gone off campus together. They'd told everyone that they were going to a concert. They'd gotten a few weird looks, but then, it seemed right up their alley. They should go to a concert for real. That would be fun. This was not the time to think of that though. Bakugou left first and, despite their impatience, they waited for Uraraka to leave and then left quickly after that. The two of them were obviously trying to hide that they were going to the same place.

What would it be though? That was the big question.

And they'd found it out. It was a restaurant. A fairly decent one too. It was the kind of place that Kaminari would think about taking a date to, but would then pick a place one step lower. He was a teenager, after all. The place wasn't super expensive, but it was enough to make him think twice.

Which was only half the reason why he and Jirou sitting at a table across the room from Bakugou and Uraraka made Kaminari squirm in his seat. The other half, the bigger one that was close to making him sweat, was that they were openly spying on Bakugou. If he saw them, there was a high chance that Bakugou would blow him sky high.

Who was he kidding? There wasn't a _chance_. It _would_ happen.

"What are they doing?" Jirou asked him in a whisper.

"I don't know," Kaminari replied while looking over the menu. "I think I might just get an appetizer as a meal."

"Not that, you dolt!" Jirou hissed. "Bakugou and Uraraka!"

Oh, right, that made more sense. They were here for a reason, after all, and it wasn't to eat, despite being in a restaurant. That was just their cover. They had worn disguises to try to hide their identities. Kaminari wasn't sure how successful he was, but he never would've guessed that the girl in the bright, flowery dress dress was Jirou. She had tried to do something different with her hair and kept her earjacks short to hide them.

Then again, he kept looking over Uraraka due to her teal hair. When he'd seen her the other morning eating breakfast in the kitchen, he had nearly yelped in surprise. Out of all the things he had been anticipating that morning, seeing as how their team match ups were that day, Uraraka with bright teal hair had not been one of them. Midoriya had exclaimed in shock as well upon seeing her, but had then staggered through an apology littered with supportive compliments while Kaminari had just gawked.

"So this is a date, right?" Jirou asked.

Kaminari snapped out of his thoughts. "Huh?"

"Bakugou and Uraraka are on a date!" Jirou repeated. His heart slowed down. For a second, he had thought that she was saying that them spying on Bakugou and Uraraka was a date. Man, he really needed to get his head into this. He was too busy worrying over getting spotted and having his dreams of being a hero cut short. "That's what this has to be. He even ordered for them both, so he's probably paying. Uraraka would think this place was too fancy for her, even though it isn't."

After living with each other for a good while, they had all began to pick up on each other's habits, preferences, and insecurities. It made it much easier to read one another, but also didn't give them much in the way of privacy. That was why Kaminari knew Bakugou would be furious if he found out that they were spying on him. He was so very particular about his private life. Kaminari almost felt guilty, but he had to know what was going on.

No one knew. Bakugou and Uraraka had this secret part of their life happening right under everyone's noses. How had no one noticed it yet? Neither Kirishima nor Asui seemed to have noticed and those two were their closest friends. How long had this been going on anyways? There were so many questions and not enough answers.

"That's what it looks like to me," Kaminari said, a frown on his face.

They were too far to hear exactly what the two were talking about, but Bakugou must have said something clever or funny because Uraraka was laughing and there was a huge smirk on his face. Both of them were so at ease with one another. It was like they'd done this before a dozen times. Was this not the first date? They had held hands while walking to the movies, but Bakugou had seemed uncomfortable about it at first from the way he'd shoved his hand out to her.

That wasn't the most alarming thing though. No, what really caught Kaminari off guard was the almost soft look on Bakugou's face whenever Uraraka wasn't looking. She was clearly struggling with the spiciness of the ramen, but instead of laughing at her or smirking like an asshole, there was this look on Bakugou's face that looked like a mixture between fondness and pleased. Having been friends with him for a while, Kaminari knew that Bakugou wasn't always in Rage Mode and he had even seen some quieter moments from him, but this was different. The closest anyone got to this Bakugou was Kirishima.

"Hold on," Jirou said, "I'm going to the restroom."

"You can't!" Kaminari exclaimed in panic. "You'll have to walk close to their table!"

Jirou winked. "That's the point. Order something for me if the waiter comes back while I'm gone."

And then she was up and leaving him at their table floundering. He watched in horror as she made her way through the tables, passing Bakugou's with just one table in between them. Bakugou was saying something to their waiter, a barely contained grin on his face while a pink-faced Uraraka pouted. Jirou disappeared around the corner where the bathrooms were. The waiter did choose to come then and Kaminari picked a large appetizer that they could just split, his focus torn between his table and theirs.

When Jirou came back, Kaminari didn't even wait for her to completely sit down before asking, "What did you hear?"

"He asked for some more water," Jirou said excitedly. It didn't sound very exciting to Kaminari. "But get this! He told the water, 'My girl thought she could get on my level and misjudged.' He called her his girl!"

Kaminari gaped stupidly. "Oh my god."

"I know!" Jirou sat back in her seat, lounging in it triumphantly. "They're totally dating."

"A secret relationship!"

"Between two rival groups!"

That brought up another line of thinking and Kaminari stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Do you think Midoriya knows? Would he be upset about this?"

Jirou shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. He and Bakugou are on better terms these days, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but I thought Uraraka had a crush on Midoriya."

"No way." Jirou shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, she _did_ , but I think it faded a few months back." Well, at least he hadn't been entirely off the mark. Uraraka's crush on Midoriya had been obvious to everyone except the boy himself, but then he had always been so focused on his time at U.A. that he had tunnel vision and forgot about everything else. That was obvious too. "Besides, I think he has a crush on… Eh, I'm probably wrong about that. It doesn't matter. What matters is _this_."

Kaminari couldn't shake something though. Something was off and he didn't know what, but it was bothering him. It was why he had questioned whether or not Bakugou and Uraraka were dating in the first place. "What about all that stuff with Todoroki?"

The excited and proud expression fell from Jirou's face. "That...does complicate things. Maybe Bakugou was confused about who he liked?"

"Yeah, but Todoroki?" Kaminari stressed. The idea that Bakugou had had a crush on Todoroki was too much for his brain to handle. It made him feel like he might short circuit without using his quirk. "Plus, Todoroki picked Uraraka to be his partner when Bakugou wanted to." There was no way he could miss the way Bakugou had nearly snapped his pencil in half when Todoroki had said Uraraka's name or how Bakugou had glared daggers at the both of them. "Something doesn't add up."

"Ugh, I hate to admit it, but you're right." Jirou sighed. "What the hell is going on? It sure as hell looks like a date to me. Look at the way she's smiling!" They both looked in the direction of the other table, only to find it empty and both of them almost jumped. Where had they gone? "They were just there…"

"Jirou? Kaminari?"

To say that Kaminari almost had a heart attack would've been an understatement. His shocked himself with his quirk the second he heard Uraraka's voice next to them. Unfortunately, he'd been holding onto the table and Jirou had an elbow on it, so he'd managed to shock her too. It didn't hurt him, but it made her actually jump.

Jerking his head to the left, he found Uraraka and, much to his horror, Bakugou standing in front of their table. There was a surprised look on Uraraka's face, but she didn't look upset. Meanwhile, standing behind her with his arms folded across his chest, Bakugou wore a thunderous look with sharp red eyes that screamed murder. Every alarm was going off in Kaminari's head, to the point where he couldn't think, much less speak.

Shit shit shit. They'd been caught. Bakugou was going to kill him. Life was over. He was too young to die.

"Oh, hey, you guys!" Jirou exclaimed, sounding fake even to Kaminari's ears. She was in panic mode too. "What's up?"

"What are you two doing here?" Uraraka asked, all pleasant and sunshine. Her cheeks were still pinker than normal, like she was blushing, but it could've been from whatever spicy monstrosity Bakugou had ordered them to eat for dinner.

"Uh…" Kaminari was coming up with a blank.

Bakugou scowled. "Oi, did you use your quirk too much on yourself?"

At that exact moment, their server set the food they'd ordered down on the table in between him and Jirou and his brain leapt onto the first thing that popped into his head. "We're on a date!" Jirou shot him a warning look, but he just rolled with it. She might've been embarrassed, but it was the only thing he could think of. Maybe, if Bakugou and Uraraka thought that they were trying to go on a secret date, they wouldn't realize that Jirou and Kaminari had been spying on their secret date. He picked up a bit of the food with some chopsticks and held it out to her. "Here you go, open wide."

"Ugh, that's disgusting," Bakugou griped, turning away from them. "Leave your cheesy shit in silence."

"Aw, I think it's cute," Uraraka replied cheerfully. She nudged Bakugou in the side with her elbow, as if to tell him that she wanted him to be more affectionate like that. "Sorry to bother you! I almost didn't recognize you two with Jirou in that dress. Have fun!"

With that, she grabbed Bakugou by the elbow and dragged him out of the restaurant. As soon as they were gone, Jirou knocked Kaminari's chopsticks away with hers and snagged a piece of food herself. "A date, really?"

"I panicked! I didn't know what else to say! I saw my life flash before my eyes."

Jirou snorted. "I can't believe they fell for it."

"Bakugou might be suspicious, but cutesy romantic stuff makes him uncomfortable," Kaminari said as he began to eat. Damn, this was good. Maybe food tasted better after a near death experience.

"Huh." Jirou paused as she looked at him. "That was...really clever then."

Kaminari swallowed a large mouthful of food. "I'm an idiot, but I'm not stupid all the time." He used his chopsticks to point at her. "I figured out something was going on between them before anyone else." And he was rather proud of himself for doing that. No one else knew. Jirou even hadn't known until he'd clued her in. Something was going on between Bakugou and Uraraka, but he was beginning to wonder if even they knew that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes:** Okay, I lied. There are TWO more chapters after this, but the last one is going to be more like an epilogue. Also, I neither planned on this getting so long or for...anything in the second half to happen. But I'd like to title this chapter as: Bakguou Comes to Some Startling Revelations. I had a LOT of fun with this chapter.

* * *

In theory, the plan had seemed simple enough. Meet up for dinner, eat some delicious food, tease Uraraka about how much she struggled to handle the heat, swing by his parents' house to pick up video games, and then head back to the U.A. dorms. Once he'd figured out what to wear, nothing had stood out as problematic in his head except for getting out of the dorms without anyone becoming suspicious.

Going back to U.A. was a bridge that they'd cross when they got there, but he hadn't been about to force her to walk back on her own with it getting dark. She had her provisional hero license and could obviously kick ass, but he wasn't a completely inconsiderate jerk. Besides, it would only take a few minutes to swipe a few games from his room and then they could leave, excuses in hand.

Of course, needing proof of his excursion to his parents' place felt kind of moot now considering that fucking Kaminari and Jirou had seen them at the restaurant.

Why the fuck had they been there anyways? The moment Uraraka had spotted them, Bakugou had saw red and then felt torn between exploding and storming out the back door. The latter had startled him into freezing. It sounded suspiciously like he'd thought about running away, which he never fucking did. In the end, he'd done neither, finding himself trailing behind Uraraka as she made her way over to them, even though he'd had no intentions of talking to them.

Had Kaminari and Jirou been spying on them? Jirou was wearing the most ridiculous bright and flower print dress, which had caused him to look over her. It was the perfect disguise if she was trying to blend in. Granted, he'd been distracted with Uraraka, but that shouldn't have made him less observant. He knew that Jirou was moderately intelligent, but Kaminari was a freaking idiot. Out of anyone in the class to find out about Bakugou and Uraraka hanging out, he was the last one Bakugou would've picked. It pissed him off.

But then Kaminari had hit them with the fact that they were on a date and, despite Bakugou not readily believing that Buzz Brain could score an actual date with Jirou, a few things made sense. One, that dress was decent enough though not her style, but it did keep both Bakugou and Uraraka from noticing them for almost the entire dinner. Also, maybe Jirou didn't want people to know that she was going on a date with Kaminari. She hadn't seem too pleased with him trying to be all cutesy and shit with her in front of them. Had the fact that they'd chosen the same restaurant as Bakugou been coincidence? They couldn't have known where Bakugou was planning on taking Uraraka since not even she had known.

They could have followed either one of them there too.

All of it was highly suspicious and kept Bakugou preoccupied from realizing something important. His thoughts kept drifting back to what Kaminari and Jirou had been doing at that restaurant and their behavior while talking with Uraraka about what Aizawa might have planned for them next since the match ups were done. He had told her before their food had arrived that he needed to stop by his parents' to snag some video games. She'd been a little caught off guard, but hadn't said no, so he'd brushed it off.

And then they were on his doorstep and it suddenly hit him: his parents' house. Uraraka. His fucking mom.

The only people in their class to have stepped foot in his childhood home had been Kirishima and, admittedly, Deku a long time ago. His demon woman of a mother had been ecstatic when he had brought Kirishima over. He just knew she would be a holy terror if she were to see Uraraka. Who knew what that woman would think? Who knew what she would say? What she would do?

He clearly wasn't doing a good job at hiding his thoughts since Uraraka gave him a curious look as he glared up at the glowing windows. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Bakugou ground out. "I was just hoping they weren't fucking home."

"You had to have half-expected them to be here," Uraraka pointed out. "It is their home."

"But they liked to go out on Saturday nights…"

Go figure they would have a night in on this particular Saturday. It wasn't that he didn't want Uraraka to come inside his house. He didn't even care if she saw his bedroom. It was that he didn't want his mom in the same room as her. It would be unbearable. Having her meet Aizawa and All Might to talk about the U.A. dorms had been awkward enough. She'd embarrassed the hell out of him. She liked doing that. He had been told that a lot of parents embarrassed their kids, but he couldn't shake the idea that she did it on purpose, like it might put him in his place. As if she hadn't been one of the people to help build his ego up as a kid.

His dad said they were just alike and that was why they butted heads so much. What a stupid idea. The woman was just demented.

(But damnit if anyone else but him said that about her. That was _his_ mom.)

"I can stay outside if you like?" Uraraka suggested, pinks tinged her cheeks even more so than normal. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything."

"Fuck that," Bakugou huffed. If his mom found out that he'd just had Uraraka wait on the doorstep like a dog, he would never hear the end of it. He was likely not to hear the end of this if she saw him bringing another friend home, much less because it was a girl, but she wouldn't be pissy with him at least. "It's whatever. My mom is a bitch."

Uraraka gasped. "Don't say that about your mom!"

"Well, she is!" Bakugou insisted, turning his head away from Uraraka's glare. "Just hope you don't find out for yourself."

He looked around the side of the house. His bedroom was on the second floor, but that wouldn't be a problem with Uraraka's quirk. Maybe he could go in by himself, unlock his window, and have her float herself up. That way he could avoid his mom or his dad seeing her. He didn't mind it if his dad saw Uraraka, but the man would tell his mom at some point. He told her everything, it seemed, unless Bakugou was really insistent or he thought it might upset him. This wouldn't be something like that though.

Sighing to herself, Uraraka held her arms with her hands. "Seriously, if that's big of a deal, I don't mind staying outside. You probably could've gone in and come back out by now."

"No, just…" Bakugou grabbed her by the wrist and started pulling her towards the front door. Fuck it. Who cared what his mom said or did? Uraraka might tease him a little, but it wasn't like she was going to tell anyone. She wouldn't, not if this night was to stay between them, which was a given after all the loops they'd jumped through to keep it a secret. "Just come on."

"And here you were teasing me about telling my mom that we were hanging out," Uraraka said with far too much glee. He shot a glare at her over his shoulder, but she only grinned back at him. It was maddening. He let go of her before he unlocked the door and stepped inside without announcing his arrival. She followed behind him quietly. He could feel the sudden shift in her mood. She was nervous. As she should be if his mom saw them.

As Bakugou hurried for the stairs, Uraraka quick on his heels in an attempt to not get left behind and at the mercy of his parents, he heard his mother shout from the living room, "Don't you dare show up and leave thinking you can get away without saying hello, Katsuki! This isn't a fucking hotel!"

"I fucking know!" Bakugou yelled back. If it was a hotel, he wouldn't have to deal with this bullshit.

They ducked into his bedroom. Unlike the way she had hesitated coming into his dorm room at U.A., Uraraka rushed inside after him and he slammed the door shut the second she was away from the door. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was open slightly in shock, but she didn't say anything. Judging from what he'd overheard of her phone conversation, she probably had some warm and fuzzy relationship with her mom. How peachy. It only grated his nerves a little. He didn't want that with his mom. She could be nice, he guessed, but…

He could now admit that he wouldn't have learned to push himself so hard to be the best if not for her.

Uraraka glanced back at the door and then him as he flipped on the lightswitch. "Are you two…?"

"Are we what?" Bakugou demanded, rounding on her.

She held her hands up in a sign of surrender. "Forget I said anything." He harrumphed and then turned his back on her so that he could root through his video games, which were organized on a shelf on his tv stand, which was now empty since he'd taken it with him to his dorm. As he did that though, he was almost positive that he heard her mumble, "Now I know where he gets it," but when he glanced back at her, she was innocently looking around his bedroom.

It put him more on edge than he liked to admit. Not that his bedroom was embarrassing or anything. He had a few old hero and band posters that he'd left behind, trophies and medals from sports and other competitions in his youth, old sports equipment and a worn down skateboard, books that he'd read a dozen times and didn't need to bring with him. All in all, it was a normal, fairly boring bedroom, like hers at the dorms, except he didn't have any pictures hanging up. There hadn't been a point. His mom took enough photos to make anyone sick.

Muffled laughter turning into snorts distracted Bakugou and he looked back at her. "What are you laughing at?"

Uraraka pointed at one of the medals. "The debate team? Really?"

"Ugh, I only did it for one year, okay? My mom made me." Bakugou had not enjoyed that at all - it had been him and a bunch of damn nerds, including Deku - but he'd be damned if he didn't win. It had been one of the first times after their quirks came about that he and Deku had been forced to work together on a team. Luckily it hadn't been just them or likely it would've ended much worse.

"How did you end your debates? With explosions, threats, and a lot of yelling?" Uraraka teased.

" _No_." At least not in the end when they'd managed to win. "With intelligent arguments that appealed to both logical and emotional aspects."

That only made Uraraka snort again. "Okay." She sounded like she was mocking him in disbelief and he narrowed his eyes, but she held up her hands once more and wiped her face mostly clean. She had to bit her lip to keep from smiling. Gods, she drove him crazy sometimes. How would she like it if he went through her childhood bedroom and questioned her on all the stupid shit her parents made her do? She'd probably been their perfect, little angel.

Well, she'd certainly grown devilish over the years.

"Right, I'm done." Bakugou zipped up his backpack and slung it over his shoulders as he stood up. "Let's get out of here before that damn woman gets nosy."

However, when Bakugou opened the door, everything came crashing down and he found himself wishing that Uraraka would tag him and float him to space with her quirk. Behind his door, standing in the hallway with her hands confidently on her hips, a victorious smirk stretched across her face, and red eyes flashing, was his mother, Mitsuki. "I thought I heard another voice," she greeted far too smugly. "Oh, Katsuki, you didn't say anything about bringing over company."

"She's not company because we're not staying," Bakugou growled as he brushed past her. "We've gotta get back to the dorms. C'mon, Uraraka."

But a smooth escape was not in their future. Uraraka couldn't just slip past his mom without coming off as rude and he knew that she wouldn't do that. She was too fucking nice and, he knew, she wouldn't want to leave a bad impression on his parents. What did it matter to her? Gods, was he going to have to be doubly cross and short to make up for her natural warmth?

"Uraraka…" His mom's eyes brightened. "You're the girl that almost dropped a meteor shower on Katsuki in the first Sports Festival. I didn't recognize you with that teal hair." She clapped her hands together. "I thought you were going to crush that little shit for a second there back then."

She almost had earlier this week, but with a hailstorm this time. Bakugou was not about to tell his mom that. She'd be far too delighted.

Laughing nervously, Uraraka rubbed the back of her neck. "Better luck next time, right?"

"You two want to stay for dinner?" his mom asked, although she was zeroed in on Uraraka. She had been the same way the first time with Kirishima, who had handled her about as well as Uraraka now.

"Already ate," Bakugou replied gruffly, his grip tightening on his backpack strap.

Uraraka pointed in the vague direction of the restaurant and added, "At the ramen place down the street."

"Is that so?" his mom quierried in an innocent tone that Bakugou knew not to trust. Her eyes flickered to his, far too knowing, and he scowled back at her. "It's his favorite place. He would've gone there twice a week growing up if we'd let him." She fixed a hard look on Bakugou. "You paid for it, didn't you? I won't have you being rude to a bright and cute girl like this!"

Bakugou opened his mouth to snarl something back at her, but then Uraraka surprisingly cut in, "Actually I paid for the meal! It was a...thank you of sorts." His mom whipped her head back to stare at Uraraka, who didn't back down. Even Kirishima had the first time his mom had intensely focused on him to ensure that he wasn't lying about something Bakugou had done. All Bakugou could do was try not to gawk. "Bakugou has really been helping me with school lately. It's thanks to him that I did so well in the team battles in our hero course this week! I wanted to repay him for taking the time to help me improve and believing in me."

If Bakugou felt like all the words had been robbed of him, his mother looked like it. Her mouth was open and she blinked a few times, like she wasn't sure if Uraraka was real or not. Finally, she closed her mouth and her shoulders relaxed. She looked...at ease. Bakugou didn't trust it. He didn't see his mom look like this often, maybe only around his dad. No one else had that calming effect on her, as far as he could remember.

"Well, I'm…" A smile came on her face. It was different than normal. In a way, it made him think of his childhood. It was softer. "I'm glad to hear it." She swelled up again, regaining her strength, and wagged a playful yet forceful finger at Uraraka. "But you let that boy pay for you next time. He should treat you to a nice place."

"You bet!" Uraraka replied with another laugh.

His mom folded her arms across her chest. "Alright, go on, you two. Enjoy the rest of your night."

"Thank you," Uraraka said, giving a slight bow, and then she started towards him. She touched his shoulder briefly, forcing his eyes to snap to hers, and then started down the stairs. He didn't know what that look or touch meant, but it made his stomach clench.

He heard the front door open and shut, telling him that she was outside, and then looked back up at his mother, who was watching him very carefully. "What?" It wasn't nearly as harsh as he'd planned on it being. He came off sounding more petulant than anything, which irritated him.

"How the hell did you win her over, Katsuki?" his mom asked him.

Bakugou snorted. "I didn't win her over. I kicked her ass."

 _And then she kicked mine._

"Alright, keep lying to me, you little shit," his mom said, "but don't go scaring her off. I like her. She's clearly capable of putting up with your ego."

"She's not that easily scared," Bakugou replied without thinking. His mom's smile widened and he narrowed his eyes. She thought she was so clever.

Without saying goodbye, he turned on his heels and stomped down the stairs. After ripping the door open and stepping outside, he slammed it shut hard enough to rattle the frame. Uraraka was standing on the sidewalk, a beacon of light under a streetlamp as she stared up at the dark sky. She turned to smile at him as he walked up to her, but then her smile faltered when he kept walking without acknowledging her. Instead of questioning though, she stayed as silent as him and hurried to keep at his side instead of walking behind him.

All he could think about was what she had told his mom. True, it had quickly gotten them out of an uncomfortable situation. If he'd admitted to paying for her meal, his mom would've made all sorts of assumptions and began to ask questions that he didn't feel were warranted. (They were questions, truth be told, that he didn't want to admit were there to begin with.) He hadn't known what to say, but then Uraraka had stepped in with that lie that still managed to feel true somehow.

It made him angry. Even worse, it made him feel...ashamed. It was a feeling that he wasn't typically acquainted with, so he didn't know how to handle it without exploding. He hadn't done those things for her. The lie had been nice and it had made him look good, but he wasn't like that. That was the kind of thing that someone said about Deku, not him, and it frustrated him to no end. Why did she have to say them?

Halfway back to the dorms, Uraraka finally piped up, unable to take the silence any longer. "Bakugou, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Bakugou replied flatly. He could be calm. He didn't have to explode all the time, no matter how much he felt like doing it on the inside.

"Seriously, what's-?"

Bakugou turned on her so fast that she almost slammed right into his chest and snapped, "I said fucking nothing, okay, so drop it!"

She took a step back, eyes wide at his sudden change in mood, but then her eyes hardened and her whole body tensed as she stood up straight, like a statue. "There's no need to get shitty with me. I offered to stay outside. It was just your mom. Tell her whatever you want about me. I don't care."

"It's not-" Bakugou clenched his fists at his side and breathed out through his nose like some sort of dragon. He had to calm the fuck down. "What you said to my mom - you didn't have to say them."

She furrowed her brow in confusion as she stared up at him. It made her look… Fuck, it made her look cute. "I could tell that you were uncomfortable, so I figured I'd take the fall." When he didn't seem to get it, she rolled her eyes. "Look, I get it, okay? If the situations had been switched and it had been my mom, she would've totally embarrassed the hell out of me, giggling and making insinuations and asking all sorts of nosy questions. I know you don't like that though. You're a private person."

The fact that she understood his need for privacy and didn't question it was somewhat astounding. Kirishima was pretty good about it most of the time, really respectable and easy to open up to, but even he got nosy and liked to pry and didn't always realize when he wanted things to stay between them. Kaminari and Ashido were awful about it. They didn't seem to understand what the word "private" meant, although they could keep secrets within their group. Sero might have been the best out of all of them, if only because he wasn't the prying type and was more amiable. Now that he thought about it, he should work with Sero more often.

With Uraraka though, he didn't have to ask her to keep things between them for her to do it. Here they were, months into their own little world with one another, and no one had a clue. They'd been playing Mario Kart together without anyone knowing, making bets that changed their lives, sometimes for the better and sometimes in really annoying ways.

He was still disgruntled over having to buy Todoroki's lunch and watching that dumb chick flick, but then he thought of Uraraka's triumphant grin during the match up, helping her dye her hair, the dumb little dances she did whenever she won a race, the way she floated him and made him feel so far removed from all his fears and insecurities for the first time in years…

And it was theirs and only theirs. Hell, even if Kaminari and Jirou had been spying on them tonight, there was no way that they knew the true story. No way they knew the whole thing or could understand. Bakugou was a part of it and didn't even know if he did.

Instead of saying any of that, Bakugou went on a completely different track, the kind that he knew would throw her off and he did it on purpose. "I don't know how you got her to fall for that. You must be a better liar than I knew, Round Face."

A look of utter disbelief crossed her face. "I wasn't lying." He raised an eyebrow. "Well, I mean, I lied about the who paid part, but that was it. I meant what I said."

Bakugou scoffed. "I don't need your flattery-"

"It was the truth!"

"-or you saying shit like that makes me sound like Deku-"

"Oh, please, would you stop it?" Uraraka demanded. And he did. He snapped his mouth shut so quick that his teeth clinked together. "I meant it. Every word. You've done...you've done a lot for me recently. I don't know if I would have - if I could have - pushed myself as hard as I did in the team match-ups if it wasn't for you."

Bakugou shook his head. "Sure you would have."

"I would've worked my ass off, but not to the level I did," Uraraka told him, "not the Plus Ultra way." It sounded so cheesy, but he didn't interrupt her or tell her off. "And it's not just that either. Playing Mario Kart might've just been a dumb way to blow off steam for you, but you forcing me to deal with my motion sickness while playing it has actually helped me strengthen my nausea control with my quirk. I can hold more and hold myself for longer."

"You would've gotten there eventually," Bakugou pointed out.

"Yeah, but I got there with you," Uraraka said. She took a deep breath. "But you know what's even better? I've had fun. I've a had a lot of fun. Not just playing video games, although that's kind of my favorite sometimes. The bets have been fun too." She smiled. "Even when you make me do dumb stuff like dye my hair and wear your clothes and eat food that makes me feel like my tongue is melting."

There was a voice shouting at him in the back of his head that was telling him there was something he was should do right now, but he didn't know what that could be. Not when all he could manage to do right now was stare back at her intensely, which she matched in return. It wasn't the kind of challenging look that he got from Deku or sometimes Todoroki or Iida. It was something else, but it felt just as important.

"The main thing is… I could've done all the things that I did, sure, but it's better with you." Uraraka shrugged her shoulders, not in a careless or helpless manner, but accepting. "You're always striving to be the best and you never hold back. You never back down. You push and push and then push some more. And you made me realize that I could do that too. The fact that you were willing to sit down and repeatedly play Mario Kart while I puked my guts out - that you not only wanted to beat me at that team match up but went out of your way to take me down - means a lot to me. Because you only do things like with people that you consider to be worthy of your time and the only people worthy are people you consider strong. I don't get viewed like that often and it felt great."

Bakugou stared at her, every word snatched from his mind and mouth. This hadn't been in his plans for the night at all. He'd figured that they'd be back at the dorms by now, gone on their separate ways. She'd be with Deku, Iida, Tsuyu, laughing it up and pretending as if they'd never gone to dinner together. He'd be with Kirishima, Sero, and Mina and doing their own thing like he hadn't bought her dinner. They would return to their separate lives that wasn't entangled with each other, except at some point, it had happened. Maybe it had started with the bets, but now that they were here, he realized that they hadn't been separate for a long time.

It was kind of freaking him out.

Which is probably why all he said was, "You're fucking weird."

Luckily, Uraraka laughed, even if she was blushing. "Don't I know it. I can't believe I just word-vomited all over you. Bet you think I'm crazy now." Hm, yeah, that wasn't the word he was thinking of right now.

When she started walking again and took a right turn instead of going straight though, Bakugou had to stop and question if she'd lost her mind. "Uh, the school is that way."

"Yeah, but you've got your excuse," Uraraka said. She pointed to his backpack and then pointed out the small convenience store, which glowed white. "I need mine. Gotta buy some tampons."

Bakugou groaned. "For fuck's sake, Uraraka."

She smiled at him. "You can stand outside if you're too embarrassed."

"You met my mom tonight," Bakugou said as he walked with her into the store. "Nothing beats that."

Except, you know, the crushing realization that the floor had been pulled out from underneath him and he hadn't even realized it. No, no, no, this was just supposed to be a fun game. They were supposed to just play Mario Kart and make bets that humiliated each other and that was that. Where had he gone off course? It was like he was on the last level, on the Rainbow fucking Road, and Uraraka had hit him with a blue shell and he was spiraling on a banana peel. There was no recovering from without falling off the track.


	14. Chapter 14

**notes:** Well, I was planning on posting this when I woke up in the morning. My daughter saw to it that by "morning", it was five am, so this has not been proofread. I'm too tired for it. I'd like to title this chapter as, "Bakugou's Dawning Realization that He's Fucked". This is also the chapter that so many people have been waiting for, so I hope you all enjoy!

* * *

Sunday had been absolute torture. Bakugou had spent the entire day fighting against himself in the gym and with quirk training. He didn't know what his problem was, but he had to get over it and fast. Something had changed and he didn't know what to do with it. Whenever he felt himself getting distracted or feeling conflicted, he put in extra physical work to get back on track. It almost always worked.

Luckily last week's match up in the hero course had helped amp him up even further, if that was possible. More often than not, when he had to worry about defeat, it came in the form of Deku or Todoroki. Even though the latter had been on the team, the victory had decidedly lied in Uraraka's hands. Even Icy Hot had admitted that in class the next day and that she had helped him learn a lesson in support. People like Todoroki, Bakugou, even Deku now - they were used to always being the one in control, the leader, the strong one, the winner.

Uraraka had turned their world upside down last Wednesday.

And then she'd done it again for Bakugou on Saturday.

When Monday came around, he was buzzing with energy, but he didn't know how to fix it. He'd spent all of Sunday busy working on himself and then school stuff on Monday. If it looked like he was avoiding Uraraka, slipping out of class quickly, eating lunch as far from her table with Deku and the others as possible, turning his back to her when he talked to Kirishima… Well, he wasn't. He was just busy.

When he stepped into the kitchen to grab a water bottle before going to the gym, Uraraka was already in there. The two of them froze the second they connected eyes with one another, but then she melted, her shoulders relaxing and a smile appearing on her face. It was so warm. He'd never noticed how she could harden up when facing him in competition, but soften when she saw him as well. He couldn't remember anyone looking at him like that, not even Kirishima

It was different and he didn't know what to do or what it meant.

Bakugou wasn't one to back down though, so he nodded his head and walked to the fridge. Every muscle in his body felt tensed up, like how he felt after working out before he cooled down, except he hadn't gone to the gym yet. He didn't know why he was acting so weird around her when they'd gotten something to eat just two days ago. There hadn't been an issue then.

"You going to the gym?" Uraraka asked. Snagging a bottle of water, Bakugou nodded and grunted in affirmation, twisting the cap and taking a sip out of it. "You were there for almost half the day yesterday. Sure you aren't pushing yourself too hard?"

"Well, somebody showed me that I need to be quicker on the uptake," Bakugou drawled, leaning back against one counter as she leaned against the other one across from him. "Stronger too, if I'm gonna take you out next time."

Uraraka laughed. "So confident that there's going to be a next time, huh?"

"Hell yeah," Bakugou said, but he eyed her carefully. They were talking about fighting again, right? Or was it something else now? So many things had second or third meanings now. Uraraka wasn't the type to be tricky though, so he figured that she was being upfront. Maybe he was the one reading into things. That wasn't like him. He was straightforward and that was what.

Pushing away from the counter, Uraraka asked, "See you tonight?"

"Actually, I'm busy," Bakugou told her.

That caused Uraraka to pause and turn back around to look at him. She couldn't stop the disappointment from flashing in her eyes, although she tried to act like his words hadn't affected her as she smoothed out her face. He felt too on edge though. Just being around her right now was making his palms sweat too much. She was likely to kick his ass at Mario Kart and he'd accidentally explode the controller in retaliation.

"Oh, okay," Uraraka said, a smile attempting to flicker back on her face.

"I've just got a lot of schoolwork I need to catch up on," Bakugou continued, although he didn't owe her an explanation. It wasn't like their nights playing video games were set in stone. She'd cancelled on him before and he'd only given her a little of a hard time. "The match up distracted me and then Saturday…"

Uraraka swallowed and nodded her head. "No, I totally get it. I took up…" She straightened up. "You're right. I put a lot of focus on that match up too."

She opened her mouth, like there was more she wanted to say, but then she turned on her heels and started for the door. It was so awkward. His words had clearly stung her more than she wanted to admit. He felt like he should say something, but he'd never felt the need to do that before. If he said something that upset someone, that was their problem. It was up to Uraraka whether or not she let this bother her.

(So why was it bothering him?)

He let her leave though without saying anything. It was only when he was on his way to the gym though that he realized they'd never talked about Thursday. From what it sounded like, maybe...

Maybe things were over. Maybe it was for the best. He needed to focus on school, after all. Anything else that took his attention was a distraction from his goal.

* * *

The next two days were strangely like old times, before he and Uraraka had started playing Mario Kart together, when she wasn't such an integral part of his life. There were no secret glances between the two of them in class, no friendly smiles from her in the hallway, no random urges to walk over to her and pull her away from the others. She'd been in his peripheral vision for so long. It was like normal when she went back to that place. After all, she had her group and he had his. He liked it that way. He didn't want to be connected to anyone else more than he already was now.

Wednesday night though it all came crashing to a head when he walked into the common area and he saw Uraraka sitting on the couch in between Deku and Iida watching a movie. It was impossible to miss her with that teal hair. After a week, it was starting to fade, seeing as how she hadn't bought the permanent dye, but she still stood out in a room. (She would've stood out regardless of her hair color.) What had really drawn his eyes was her laugh, so bright and unrestrained, like she had sounded on Saturday night with him.

But she wasn't with him right now. She was with them. She wasn't even looking his way.

To his credit, he'd done what he could to go back to his old routine in these past two days, but he did glance at her every once in a while and she'd never once looked his way. At first, it had irritated him, but then, he'd remembered that this had been of his own design. She was a distraction. He realized that she had started to preoccupy his mind a lot more than normal. One off night of Mario Kart had become a week thing, to twice a week, to weekend nights, to even affecting him during school.

His brain first told him that it was Uraraka's fault, but no, that wasn't right. She'd met him head for head at every round, but he had been the one to start upping the ante. He had been the one to seek her out almost time and time again. He had been the one that was angry when Todoroki had chosen her as a partner instead of him, even though fighting against her had proven to be even better.

He could've handled all that - he could've gone to his dorm and continued to ignore it - but then he glanced over spotted Kaminari and Jirou whispering in the corner and he just snapped.

Bakugou stormed over towards them, fire in his eyes. Jirou spotted him first, her eyes widening in shock, and he saw that she understood what was going on. She was smart enough to cut Kaminari off by loudly proclaiming, "I need to speak with Momo about something," and then booking it to the other side of the room where Momo was studying.

Unfortunately for Kaminari, he didn't notice that Bakugou was bearing down on him until it was too late when he had a hand gripping him by his collar. "O-oh, hey, Bakugou! What's up?"

"You're coming with me," Bakugou announced in a growl as he dragged Kaminari into the hallway. He protested only a little, waving his hands about, but then snapped his mouth shut when Bakugou kicked the bathroom door open and tossed him inside. He followed and then locked the door behind him, effectively locking Kaminari in the bathroom with him. Although he had no plans to actually hurt him, it had the desired effect of scaring him shitless, which he knew would loosen his tongue. "I know what you're up to, Buzz Brain."

Kaminari laughed nervously. "What are you talking about?"

Bakugou folded his arms across his chest. "You expect me to believe that you and Jirou are dating?"

"It was our first date!" Kaminari insisted, his face turning bright red. Try as he might though, he couldn't keep the guilt out of his eyes and that was when Bakugou knew he had him.

"The restaurant," Bakugou said flatly and Kaminari swallowed. "You, me, Kirishima, and Sero went there last year and you didn't like it, so you can't tell me that you decided to take Jirou there on a date."

Kaminari's face went from red to pale very quickly. He was probably seeing his life flash before his eyes. Luckily for him, Bakugou was currently angrier at himself. "It-it's not what it looks like-"

"Oh, like you were following me?" Bakugou questioned, stepping closer and making Kaminari step back. "Like you were spying on me?"

"Would it be better if we were spying on Uraraka?" Kaminari asked.

Bakugou narrowed his eyes. "Worse. Much worse."

"That's…" Kaminari winced. "Unfortunate."

"Start talking, Pikachu, or we're going to see just how many times you can surpass your quirk limit," Bakugou demanded with no wiggle room.

After looking around the bathroom nervously for any escape route, Kaminari slouched his shoulders and leaned against the wall. There were no windows for him to climb through and with Bakugou standing in front of the only door, on top of it being locked, there was no getting out of this. It looked as if whatever scheme he'd had cooking was at the end of its road. If Kaminari and Jirou had had the foresight to follow him and Uraraka to the restaurant, then chances were they knew more as well and he wanted to know.

The explanation began to spill out of Kaminari like a landslide. "Well, I saw you and Uraraka playing Mario Kart after everyone went to bed one night and I got curious. I mean, everyone was after you bought Todoroki lunch, but then there was the movies where you and Uraraka held hands and she floated you and she was wearing your shirt."

"How do you know it was my shirt?"

With a look on his face like it was obvious, Kaminari said, "I saw her take it off and throw at you in the laundry room."

Red immediately flashed in Bakugou's mind's eyes. "You what? That's what you were doing outside that night?"

"I ran out of the room when I realized what was happening!" Kaminari exclaimed quickly, holding up his hands in defense. "I didn't see anything, I swear!"

A deep frown on his face, Bakugou eyed him suspiciously, but then let the matter go. If Kaminari had actually seen anything, he would've been blushing a hell of a lot more. He probably would've had a nosebleed or something. Bakugou hadn't even seen anything since she'd thrown the shirt at his face and he'd been super red. "Continue."

"Well, after I overheard you and Uraraka talking about hanging out, I couldn't keep it to myself anymore and I told Jirou, so we...kind of...listened in…" Kaminari fiddled with his fingers anxiously. "But you two were just watching a movie, so we left you alone."

Bakugou stepped forward and pointed a finger at him. "You tell anyone else about that movie-"

"I-I won't! I promise!" Kaminari hesitated. "Well, Momo knows you were there - she walked into the room when we were listening." If steam could blow out of Bakugou's ears, that would be happening right now. "But she doesn't know what movie you were watching!"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bakugou waved with his other hand. This was even more of a mess than he could have ever imagined. He and Uraraka had just been playing Mario Kart. How the hell had it evolved into some sort of conspiracy theory?

"So there there was the whole teams fight and I could tell you were pissed about Todoroki picking Uraraka," Kaminari continued. "I figured you wanted to pick her, but he beat you." He whistled. "That was one hell of a fight. What Uraraka did with Todoroki was crazy." He shook his head. "Anyways, when you and Uraraka made last minute plans off campus at the same time, we knew something was up. I mean, once we saw you two at the restaurant, we figured out you were dating and we were curious, so-"

"Wait," Bakugou interrupted. "What?"

Kaminari looked at him strangely. "You and Uraraka are dating...right?"

"The hell do you think I am?" Bakugou demanded furiously, crowding in Kaminari's space. "I'm not dating anyone. I don't have time for that shit."

"But...you two… You took her out to eat - to your favorite restaurant - and then you took her to your house. I mean, you had to do that since you got your video games." Kaminari scratched his head while Bakugou gawked at him. For being an idiot, he'd figured quite a few things out, but then, he'd had Jirou to help him. She was smart enough and observant to put two and two together. "That's like textbook dating, isn't it?"

There was nothing Bakugou could say. Kaminari and Jirou thought that he and Uraraka were dating. It was fucking ridiculous. They'd just been playing some games, blowing off some steam, and making dumb bets. They hadn't been dating. They were torturing each other with these bets. Dating… No way. He didn't like Uraraka like that. She was Round Face. She was best friends with Deku. She wasn't… He didn't… It was just for the bets.

"Get out of here," Bakugou said, turning away from him.

"Uh, Bakugou?"

Bakugou rounded on him quick as a whip. "What the fuck did I just say?"

"You got it, boss!" Kaminari bolted around him, unlocking the door and all but running out, leaving Bakugou to stew inside the bathroom alone. He didn't know. Kaminari didn't know shit about the bets. He'd seen a few things between Bakugou and Uraraka, but he had no clue what was really going on. He didn't know what the hell was going on with them. Dating, them, ha! He wouldn't date her. He didn't want to date her.

He gripped the edge of the sink and leaned forward over it. Her laughed popped into his head, bright and nervous and awkward. Her smile - shy, proud, cutting, tired, uncomfortable. Her pink cheeks and how they'd glow whenever she was embarrassed or mad. Those soft pink pads on her fingertips that contrasted with the rough skin of her palms. The warmth he felt when sitting next to her on the couch. How he could be clear across a room from her and still look over to connect with those knowing brown eyes of hers. The way she could make him feel sky high, prouder than hell, thrilled, anger, fear, pain, freedom, brightness.

Bakugou's forehead fell against the mirror. "Oh fuck."

Yeah, he was in deep shit.

Apparently he hadn't known what was going on either. Shit, he wondered if Uraraka did. _Fuck._

* * *

Right before lunch on Thursday, as everyone was filing out of the classroom, Bakugou bumped into Uraraka and grumbled, "You got your game face on for tonight?" He only glanced at her long enough to see a grin light up her face before he pulled his backpack further onto his shoulder and walked out. It was all that needed to be said to change the mood considerably. When he came back to class after lunch, Uraraka waggled her eyebrows at him and he shot her a lazy smirk.

This felt right. This felt good. It wasn't the old norm, but a new one that he didn't want to let go of. Whatever this was had been going on for almost two months now and he didn't want it to end. She didn't need him anymore to get over her motion sickness with video games - she'd proved that much already - but it was obvious that she didn't want to stop this either. What that meant, he didn't know, but he had to find out. He was fiercely tenacious if nothing else.

After another night of Mario Kart with the class while Uraraka merely watched and turned down Deku's invitation to play, Bakugou went off to his dorm to wait. Kaminari had pointedly avoided him the entire day and had even chosen to sit separately from Jirou. He must not have told her what he and Bakugou had talked about, but judging from the looks she sent his way, she'd figured it out on her own.

Bakugou didn't care. None of it mattered. He knew what did and what was on the line.

It was him.

(He hated it, but wasn't willing to stop it either. He never backed down from a challenge.)

Apparently, the two of them left their dorms at almost exactly the same time. They met each other in the common area, both of them buzzing with an excited energy. He'd missed this on Monday night when he'd been doing some extra credit work. Truth be told, while he had let himself get distracted by her, it had allowed him to focus more on his work when he got down to it. Maybe there was some credit to the idea of giving his brain a break. Plus, he was ready to work harder on even menial tasks and busy work when he was in a better mood. He hadn't even noticed the change until Kirishima had asked if he was okay on Tuesday.

"I'll get the snacks and you start the game?" Uraraka prompted.

"No, I'll get the snacks," Bakugou told her.

Uraraka shook her head. "No way. Your snacks will only serve to distract me and that's an unfair advantage." She didn't even give him the chance to argue before she ducked into the kitchen. He rolled his eyes, but instead of following her, he went to set up the video game. Part of him wondered if he should be worried about Kaminari or Jirou spying on them, but no, that had to be done. Kaminari had learned his lesson, all without Bakugou resorting to use his quirk.

See, he could be nice. He bet Uraraka would be proud of him.

"So, I've got a bet for you," Uraraka said as she set down his glass of water and some snacks on the table. She picked up her controller and sat down on the couch, her legs curled up underneath her. The way she sat, her body was turned towards him slightly and her knees just barely grazed the side of his leg. "You remember how you had to style your hair for your internship with Best Jeanist?"

The groan Bakugou let out was completely unintentional. "That's evil, Uraraka."

"My hair is teal!" Uraraka exclaimed, although she didn't sound mad. "Anyways, you have to style your hair like that for a week."

Bakugou gave her a sideways look, totally unamused. "Yeah? That's your bet?"

Uraraka grinned at him. "Yeah." They settled into picking out their character and karts. "So what's yours tonight?"

It all came down to this moment right here. He could change his mind. He could still change the bet. He'd come up with a back up one in case it didn't feel right. After that stupid bet about her taking off her shirt, he felt like a total idiot and he didn't want to make a bet that felt like crossing a line or would upset her. He had learned that there was a difference between coming up with a bet that would embarrass her and one that would make her uncomfortable and he didn't want to do the latter.

But he'd never backed down before. He wasn't the type. When this bet had popped into his head earlier this morning, he hadn't been able to shake it, no matter how many times he told himself how stupid it was. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want her to do it either. So what was the point of this bet, huh? It would only manage to make things awkward between them again. Maybe she'd stop talking to him. What the hell was he thinking? He didn't want to do this with her. This was just some stupid game.

"If I win," Bakugou said, "you've gotta kiss me."

"Wh-what?" Uraraka blushed furiously. "Are you…? Are you kidding?"

Bakugou huffed. "What? Anyone would be lucky to do that." She snorted in an attempt to stop from laughing and he glowered at her. "Ah, whatever, you're too chicken-shit. That win last Wednesday went straight to your ego."

"It did not!" Uraraka picked the course. "I just…" She bit her lip. "I didn't think you'd want to, you know…"

"Who says I do?" Bakugou shrugged his shoulders, trying to appear cool, while every warning sign was blaring inside of his head. He could just hear his brain shouting, Abort! while acid ate away at the lining of his stomach. What the hell had he been thinking? She didn't want to do this. He was making her uncomfortable again. Gods, he was such a fucking idiot. How the hell did she make him feel like this? "The point of a bet is making you do something that you don't want to do."

Uraraka swallowed and gripped her controller tightly. "Right, of course."

"Listen, if you don't want to-"

"No!" Uraraka interrupted. He turned to give her a curious look, which she avoided. "Let's just start the race, okay? I-I can't wait to see you with a comb over again."

Either on purpose or because she'd been distracted by his bet, Uraraka had unintentionally picked the hardest course in the game. It was the rainbow road, except this time, Bakugou had every intention of winning. She did her best to knock him off a few times, but he clung on for dear life. This was a match he was absolutely determined to win - and not just because he didn't want to style his hair in a comb over for a week.

When he one the first race, she grit her teeth and started the race again. When he won the second, she tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned forward to focus. She won the third game and he found himself swearing. When she won the fourth game and jumped up to dance in his face, he almost tackled her on the couch to get her to stop. The fifth game though, the deciding game, the one with all the money riding on it…

He won while she came in a miserable fifth place.

Instead of gloating and cheering like he normally did, Bakugou set the controller down on the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. Uraraka was staring at the screen like she wasn't quite sure what happened. He thought she looked… Maybe he was looking into things, but he thought she looked a little nauseous, like she used to when video games still triggered her motion sickness. She must have really not wanted to kiss him. He'd had the wrong idea all day.

Bakugou rolled his eyes. "Relax. I was joking about the bet."

Instead of replying to him, Uraraka set her remote down and turned her body towards him. She'd changed sitting positions multiple times while playing as if that might help her win, but her legs were back underneath her now as they had been before. He looked at her with an impassive expression, forcing his beat to stay steady, and didn't even blink when she scooted closer to him.

"So just like...one kiss?" Uraraka asked finally. "Any time limit?"

Bakugou huffed and sat upright. "I'm not gonna time you-"

She did it when he least expected it, leaning forward to cup his face with her hands and pressing her lips against his. The action caught him off guard and he almost pulled back, but then she was kissing him, holding onto him, and his eyes closed and his hands found themselves on her arms. An instinctive urge to pull her closer burned inside of him that he ignored, but he tightened his grip on her just a bit. It wasn't the best kiss by far, seeing as how she'd bumped noses with him by moving while he'd been talking, but then her lips were soft, warm, and wet. He could taste the cookies that she'd been snacking on in between races and feel the tension in her hands against his face as her lips moved against his.

By the time he realized that he was floating off the couch, he'd run out of air and had to stop in order to breathe. Their faces were only inches apart though, eyes locked on one another's, and the only reason he hadn't floated completely to the ceiling was because of their grip on each other. That had been no quick peck that he'd been anticipating. That was… He didn't know what the hell that was, but it had managed to make him completely forget about the game.

"Bakugou, I…" Uraraka's face was a beautiful shade of pink, but there was fear in her eyes that made him panic and pull away out of habit. "I've gotta go!" She pulled her hands off his face and jerked out of his grip, hopping off the couch. Pressing her fingers together, she said, "Release!" and he went crashing front first onto the couch. Before he even had time to clamber upright and figure out what the hell was going on, she was gone, having run off to her dorm in record time.

Groaning, Bakugou flopped onto his back and rubbed his face with his hands. What the hell had he been thinking? Uraraka hadn't wanted to kiss him. Now he was really going to have to apologize and this whole thing would be over. She'd never want to hang out with him again. He'd fucked up a good thing and he knew it. There had been a clear line and he had crossed it.

Except… Well, that kiss. It had certainly fucking felt like she'd meant it.

And he was too thrown to pretend like he hadn't. What the fuck had happened?


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes:** I just want to thank everyone for reading. It's been a true pleasure writing this. Thanks again to thesvenmachine on the Kacchako Discord for giving me this prompt that started this whole mess and then letting me blab to her about all sorts of ideas that I had. It's thanks to talking to her that the whole bet thing came up. I don't know how this spiraled into what it did, but I've had a blast. I'm sad to see it go, but excited that I actually finished a long fic! You all have made that possible. The love and support that came from everyone has truly made this worth it. Thank you! Now, get ready for some fluff and fulfillment!

* * *

Truth be told, ever since Uraraka had basically run out on him after giving him the best kiss of his life, Bakugou didn't know what to do. He'd been stressing and acting out for the days since going out to eat with her, but after their night of games and that bet, he felt...at peace. There was nothing else he could do. Yeah, he could get moody and frustrated about it, but the ball was in her court. He couldn't force anything to happen. He couldn't force her to feel the same things that he felt. This was not something he could make go his way.

If Uraraka chose to ignore whatever the hell that had fallen between them, that would give him his answer. He would move on and that was that. There would be no more late night video games, no more ridiculous bets, none of that. For all he cared (and he cared a fucking lot, but found himself caring for her wants more), she could keep hanging out with Todoroki and progress her relationship with him. She could fall in love with Deku. It didn't matter. If she wasn't interested in him that way, he'd live with it. They could be just friends. He'd accept that.

Maybe that was what was surprising the most - that Bakugou would settle for something. It wasn't settling though. Right before making that bet about her kissing him, he'd come to realize something important: he liked being friends with her as much as he wanted more with her. He liked the games, the laughter, the jokes. Those were all things that he had with the rest of his friends, even though he didn't always cop to it. He was willing to give up wanting more if it meant keeping those.

He was more than willing to just be friends with her because it was important. Because she accepted him the way he was and never asked him to be more for her and yet he found himself wanting to do better. It still made him feel lighter. It still made him strive for more.

Uraraka was still good for him, regardless of what she meant to him, and he was good for her.

He would never forget that fight against her. He'd never forget her pride. How could he? Not when he'd felt pleased at seeing that grin on her face? He couldn't remember a time feeling so happy about getting bested.

The next day, Uraraka avoided him completely. Bakugou had expected to feel pissed - had definitely planned on feeling the urge to explode - but instead he had only felt relieved. He'd done whatever he could do. He hadn't realized how much tension had been building inside of him until she'd released him from her quirk and he'd crashed onto the couch, still feeling like he could float. He had been holding so much back, so much inside, that it was a wonder he hadn't given himself an ulcer. Even more ridiculous, he'd been lying to himself and it made him feel foolish. He hated that feeling almost more than losing.

With all that in mind, since Uraraka was avoiding him, Bakugou made no attempts at pressuring her or getting in her space. He let her be. Maybe his eyes roved over to Uraraka more than normal and she would look away every time, her cheeks tinged pink, but he couldn't fight it. He didn't even flip out when he saw her eating lunch and going over homework with Todoroki in the Grand Mess Hall. What was done was done.

The kiss meant nothing. It was just a bet. It was _nothing_.

Or at least it would've been nothing if not for the canyon of unsaid words that was building up between them every time they connected eyes and didn't say a word. There was no way in hell Uraraka could go on acting as if nothing had happened after that kiss. Either way, something had changed. They couldn't go back to playing video games Monday night without addressing it. Bakugou didn't know if he was up for that though hence why he found himself waiting for her.

Short of stomping over to her, grabbing her by the arm, and pulling her away from everyone so that they could talk in peace, Bakugou had to wait. It didn't help that every time he did look over her way, his eyes dropped to her lips, focusing on the way they tugged upward when she smiled or how she'd twist them when she was thinking. He couldn't stop thinking about how soft her lips had felt. He wanted to pull her away from everyone, but knew that it would only make things worse

If Uraraka didn't come to him, well, then he had his answer. He wouldn't waste either of their time, not for something like this. They had more important things on the line. They were here to become heroes, not discover some mushy ass feelings. He could respect that. Would it hurt? Like a bitch. But he'd suffered worse. He could handle anything thrown at him. Hell, he'd been kidnapped, watched his idol forced into retirement, messed up in his first hero provisional license exam, and so much more. He could handle _this_.

Of course, fate had another thing coming for him.

It was as if neither one of them could get away from each other. Try as she might to avoid him, it was like something was conspiring to put them together. She clearly didn't want to be around him, especially alone. It stung, but he refused to let it bother him. However, it wasn't like they couldn't get away from one another, somehow pulled together anyways.

When he went to Gym Gamma to solo train, she appeared thirty minutes into his session. Judging from the shocked look that had crossed her face before she could hide it, she hadn't known he was going to be there. Pft, she should have realized that when he wasn't at the dorms. They'd stuck to opposite sides of the gym, the tension crackling between them until Bakugou decided to finish off with a run on the track. He ignored the way her shoulders sunk in relief.

At lunch, without meaning to, they both reached to grab the last container of mochi at the same time, bumping shoulders and hands. Both of them retracted their hands quickly as if they'd been burned. Uraraka opened her mouth, cheeks turning steadily pink, when he'd huffed and walked off without a word to pay for his food. It was her favorite food; she could have it. Besides, he didn't need dessert anyways. He wasn't fond of sweets often.

Later that night, they found each other in the kitchen, her walking in right when he was plating his food. He still had dishes to clean, but rushed through them quickly as she set about finding something to eat. Unlike the normal junk food that she loved, he noticed that she had a healthy meal already cooked, just needing warmed up. She gave him a nervous smile and was out of the kitchen before he finished cleaning. When he stepped out of the kitchen, she was sitting on the couch with Asui and Ashido and he decided to eat in his dorm. He caught her glancing at him as he turned, but then kept on walking without looking back.

The next day, Uraraka was gone off campus. Bakugou definitely didn't go out of his way to find out where she'd gone - he wasn't about to ask any of her friends - but he overheard Deku in the common area telling Iida that she had gone to visit her parents for the weekend. It was a surprise trip that had come out of the blue, although she had mentioned at dinner last Saturday that she hadn't seen them in a while. Bakugou grit his teeth and forced himself not to react. It didn't mean anything. It wasn't like she'd left to specifically avoid being around him. It had nothing to do with him.

And yet, for some reason, with Uraraka gone from the dorms, it felt like something was missing.

Bakugou wouldn't let it get to him, but by Sunday, time was grating on him. The questioning, the wondering, the "what ifs" and what was going to happen… He couldn't stand it. He had to be patient. He had to wait. He wasn't the type of guy that would fly off the handle because he didn't get what he wanted - not anymore.

Come Monday night, either way, he'd get his answer and he would have to live with it. Either she'd show up to play video games or she wouldn't. He loathed the idea of sitting out there waiting for her - it made him feel so vulnerable and it gave her all the power - but he'd bite the bullet and do it. If the positions were flipped, he had a feeling that Uraraka would've done the same for him. She would be courteous. She would consider his feelings and give him time to sort through them. He could do that for her.

Fuck, if it didn't drive him up a wall though.

He didn't see her again until Monday. By the time she'd come back to the dorms, Bakugou had already been in bed. He was sitting in class with Kirishima and Sero when Uraraka walked in with Hagakure and Asui. He went to turn away like he'd done before, giving her an out so that it wouldn't seem like she was avoiding him, but then she smiled shyly at him and, damnit, his heart stuttered and he nearly broke the pencil that he was holding.

It didn't mean anything. The smile didn't mean anything.

The morning classes went by quickly, but not fast enough. During Midnight's class, she decided to pair them up for a small project. His first instinct was to turn to Uraraka, his body moving before his brain could finish the thought. When he found her turned towards him, he nearly jumped in his seat. Her pink spots on her cheek glowed even brighter. Before anything could happen though, Hagakure jumped excitedly in between them and asked Uraraka to be her partner.

Just like that, the moment came to an end and, for the first time since Thursday, explosions threatened to slip from his palms. He couldn't make a scene without looking like a total idiot. It was frustrating.

When lunch came though, Bakugou was brimming with so much energy that he was beginning to think that he needed to pull Uraraka away from everyone and have a talk with her. She was out of the classroom before he could even think further about it, which only made the turmoil even worse.

"You okay, man?" Kirishima asked as they walked out. "You've been kind of...weird all weekend."

"What?" Bakugou snapped. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, you've been _quiet_ ," Ashido added curiously, getting into his face. "That's not like you at all!"

Bakugou leaned back to get space. "I don't need to be loud all the time to be normal!"

Ashido laughed. "That's more like it."

They knew that he wasn't loud all the time and was fully capable of being quiet when the time called for it. Now they were just pressing his buttons on purpose. He glanced back at Kaminari, who held up his hands in defense and shook his head. No, it wasn't him. He hadn't said anything. Bakugou turned to Kirishima, who was wearing a look that was far too innocent for his own good and whistling, and narrowed his eyes. He might not know exactly what was going on, but he knew something was. He could probably sense Bakugou was refusing to deal with something and felt the need to push him.

That red-headed little shit.

And then Uraraka was in front of him, a nervous smile on her face and her hands held behind her back. "Hey, Bakugou, can we talk?"

"Sure, anything to get away from these nerds," Bakugou said, managing a nonchalance that he sure as shit didn't feel. The second she had appeared in front of him, his heart began to beat wildly and his palms started to sweat. If he didn't get out of here fast, then all of his friends were going to catch on and Kirishima would never let it go. Not that they weren't leaping to expectations now since Uraraka had come out of nowhere.

Still, pretending like this was totally normal, Bakugou waved Kirishima off, saying that he'd join them at lunch in a bit, and walked off with Uraraka. None of her friends were in sight. No Deku, no Asui, no Iida. She'd been smart enough to confront Bakugou without them as an audience, but not kind of enough to do the same for him. They were going to have a field day with this.

Ah, what did it matter? They'd already seen the two of them hold hands with him floating silently behind her. Kaminari was probably having a fit though. Hopefully he'd be able to keep his mouth shut.

After nearly five minutes of walking in silence, despite the voice in the back of Bakugou's head warning him to be patient for just a little longer, he couldn't handle it anymore and burst out, "So are you gonna talk or are we just going on a walk?"

"Oh, um" - Uraraka rubbed the back of her head and that smile twitched back onto her face again - "I was trying to find a place that was more private."

Bakugou stared at her. "Why?"

"Because I know how much you value your privacy," Uraraka replied earnestly. She stopped walking and her gaze fell down to her feet. He found himself unable to look away from her. She looked so nervous. It was written in her entire body - from the way she kept shifting on her feet, avoiding his gaze, and fiddling with her fingers until she finally hid them behind her back again. "And you always made sure that our… That no one knew we were hanging out."

"That's not…" Bakugou blew air out of his nose and turned to look at the sky. It was sunny as hell, matching her temperament a hell of a lot more than his. "It's not that I didn't want anyone knowing." When he glanced down at her briefly, her brown eyes bright with hope. Maybe he was reading too much into things. He had been waiting for her to talk with him all weekend and now that they were here he kind of wished he could leave. "Yeah, I didn't want anyone in my business, but I...preferred it being just us. I preferred it being our thing."

"'Preferred'," she repeated.

Bakugou huffed. "Okay - I _liked_ it that way." He grimaced a little. "I liked being around just you and making all those dumb bets and no one else being involved. It was like… It was like I had you to myself."

"No need to sound so enthusiastic about it," Uraraka replied dryly as she folded her arms across her chest.

A scowl crossed Bakugou's face and he crossed his arms as well, mirroring her. His muscles tensed underneath his school jacket, but he didn't budge. "Hey, you're the one that wanted to talk, so you better start. I'm not doing all of it, not after you avoided me all weekend."

Uraraka dropped her arms and clasped her hands together in front of her. "Sorry about that."

"I don't need an apology," Bakugou told her. "I want an explanation."

Chewing on her bottom lip (which only drew his attention and made things even worse), Uraraka's shoulders dropping and she breathed out. "I was embarrassed."

"More so than after telling everyone in class that I was gonna be the number one hero?" Bakugou questioned incredulously. She opened her mouth and then closed it. "Than when you wore my shirt and held hands with me in front of everyone?" She blushed again as he reached out to tug on one of her bangs framing her face. "When you dyed your hair teal?" It was fading now. In another week or two, her hair would mostly be back to normal. As much as he enjoyed seeing that teal in a crowd, he'd still be able to spot her without it. "When we had dinner?"

"That didn't embarrass me," Uraraka said. "The dinner, I mean. I liked it." She fiddled with the pads on her fingertips, pressing down on them one at a time in thought. "None of it really embarrassed me in the end." An awkward laugh tumbled out of her. "Okay, that first one was super embarrassing. I was so mad at you! But the other ones…" She smiled up at him. It should not have affected him as much as it did. It pissed him off and at the same time he was okay with it. "They were all fun."

Bakugou swallowed. "Fun." She'd liked the dinner. What the fuck did that mean? "But that last bet wasn't."

"No!" Uraraka responded so suddenly and forcefully that Bakugou raised his eyebrows. Any other person might have taken a step back from how intense she got, but he didn't make a move. She flushed further. "That's not what I meant."

"Kind of hard to tell since you just ran off," Bakugou pointed out.

Uraraka took a deep breath. "I was embarrassed," she continued slower, as if forcing every word out, "because I thought maybe I crossed a line." He furrowed his brow. "You're very particular about certain things, like your space and all that, and yeah, the bets kinda pushed them, but I just…" She looked down at her feet again. "I thought it was okay, but then you pulled away and I realized how stupid I must have been, how maybe I had things all wrong, and I freaked out." She groaned and hid her face in her hands. "You must think I'm such an idiot!"

Out of all the things she was expecting, Bakugou bursting out into laughter was probably the last one. She peeled her hands away from her face and gawked at him, as if she was in disbelief over what she was hearing. It felt so fucking good to laugh. Every last bit of anxiety bled away from him and the knot that had started to reform in his chest was undone again. How could they be so stupid?

"Yeah, you're an idiot," Bakugou told her in between laughs. "But so am I."

"Wh-what?"

Bakugou shook his head. "I pulled away because you looked afraid and I freaked out."

Had they really been dancing around each other? This whole time, they'd been on the same page and they hadn't even realized, although he had a suspicion that she'd figured out her feelings a little before him. He was stubborn and knew it. Uraraka would be more likely to recognize a crush before he did. How much anxiety had they wasted on this? Had she been torn up about all of this as much as him? It couldn't be. She didn't try to flush her feelings down a toilet.

Uraraka's gaze softened. "So you…"

"I made that bet for a reason, Round Face," Bakugou said pointedly, "and it wasn't to embarrass you."

"Then…" Realization blossomed in Uraraka's eyes and her entire body relaxed. "Oh."

Bakugou's hands clenched tightly over his arms. "Yeah."

For a moment, they stared at each other. Bakugou felt like they were directly at the tipping point. Whatever they decided to do next would change everything. They could laugh and go their separate ways. He'd accept it. They could step forward and be something more. He was terrified, but wanted it. Whatever happened, he would leave it up to her. He knew what he wanted, but he was unsure of how she felt. If the bets had taught him one thing, it was that doing something embarrassing was much different from doing something you didn't want to do. He'd given her an out on Thursday night. He wouldn't force her to do anything.

Very carefully, Uraraka put her hands on his and slowly peeled them off his arms. "Can I…?" Her eyes landed on his lips and he knew exactly what she was asking. His heart jumped into his throat.

"Hell yes," Bakugou barely managed to say before he cupped Uraraka's face, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips against hers.

This was was… He wouldn't say it was better, but it was. This time, both of them knew what they wanted and they knew what the other wanted as well. She kissed him with as much enthusiasm and desire as he felt, her hands gripping his arms tightly. He lost track of how many times they had been forced to breathe before kissing each other again. It wasn't just one kiss. It was a handful bundled into one moment. Her mouth was warm, wet, and wanting, pulling him further into her. He wouldn't have stopped kissing her even if their entire class showed up.

Despite her body being somewhat pressed up against his, it wasn't enough. His whole being demanded more. He took his hands away from her face and moved them down under her ass so that he could pick her up and press her even closer to him. She squeaked in surprise and he moved to set her down, thinking maybe he'd gone too far, when she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. Oh, fuck. Now it was too much. His head was spinning and his body buzzing and his skin burning.

Bakugou pulled away and took in a gasp of air. Uraraka did the same, giggling to herself, and pressed her forehead against his. For at least a minute, neither one of them said anything. They could only pant heavily in each other's space, her breath mixing in with his. She must've popped a mint or two before talking to him, maybe in hopes that something would go right. He nearly laughed. Gods, he'd had a spicy snack earlier. She didn't look like she cared, at least not right now.

"What was that about talking with me?" Bakugou asked in a murmur.

"Oh, would you shut up?" Uraraka laughed. She leaned back and held his face in his hands, so that when he opened his eyes, he was looking directly into hers. They were practically shining. "I bet you won't kiss me again."

"I bet you I will," Bakugou countered and then he was, their lips crashing against each other's again. He didn't give a shit if anyone saw them now. He wasn't about to hide how he felt, not anymore. It wasn't just their thing. She was his and he refused to let go.

And if they floated a few feet off the ground while kissing, well, they realized it before things got too out of hand.

* * *

That night, they still played Mario Kart like usual, but it kind of devolved into them kissing after Uraraka beat him. Both of them had realized that, while a few things would change, some things would remain the same. They both liked their game nights too much to give them up, although Bakugou planned on bringing his gaming system to the dorms instead of relying on Kaminari. They didn't need him as an excuse to be around each other more.

No doubt Kaminari would be pleased about that. Uraraka had been mortified when Bakugou had told her about Kaminari and what he'd figured out, especially the part about her taking off his shirt and throwing it at him. Her little moment of bravery definitely made her blush now. No longer pissed, it had just made him laugh.

Figuring out how things worked outside of those private moments was something different. Uraraka wanted to take things slow and Bakugou agreed, although it was a constant reminder for their teenage bodies and brains whenever it came up. Still, it wasn't like they were going to ditch their friends to each lunch with each other or forget about school. They had lives outside of each other and those were important to consider. They had goals.

It turned out that they could help one another with those too. Bakugou had never considered that someone might be able to lift him up the way Uraraka did. The closest he got to anyone with that was Kirishima and maybe he'd been holding himself back there as well. There were a lot of things that he'd never considered before until he and Uraraka had started playing Mario Kart together. Being with one another was just one thing. There were also their quirks to consider. The possibilities felt endless and his future - no, _their_ future - bright.

Come Thursday night, the Mario Kart party commenced as usual with the entire class in the common area. There was a current and very serious grudge match between Iida and Sero, both of whom were determined to win. They had been coming out on top the last three nights everyone played and other people ready to break the streak. If Kaminari didn't win tonight, Bakugou was certain the redhead would rage quit. Even Deku had gotten really into it, having been knocked to third place twice by Iida. Ashido had come in first place once in a race, but then spent the rest of the races getting dogged on by the others. Bad luck all around.

Bakugou was sitting on the back of the couch and leaning forward, his forearms resting on his knees and his feet on the cushions, when Uraraka walked into the room with Asui. They'd brought snacks for everyone. That had been Uraraka's designated roll for most nights since she never played. The current race ended, solidly knocking Yaoyorozu out, and their classmates started to argue over who was next to take her place.

"Can I play?" Uraraka asked.

Deku brightened immediately. "Of course!" He glanced at Yaoyorozu, who nodded her head in agreement and handed her controller over to Uraraka.

Kirishima rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, not to sound like a jackass, but…"

"Do you even know how to play?" Mineta questioned, taking the heat off Kirishima, who looked relieved. He would have at least offered to help or give Uraraka some pointers while that grape little shit just gawked at her. Maybe the question had some traction to it, seeing as how she'd never played before and always turned Deku's offers down.

Bakugou smirked to himself. They didn't know her like he did.

"I'm sure I'll figure it out," Uraraka replied teasingly, connecting eyes with Bakugou. Before anyone could tell her otherwise, she sat down on the couch where his feet were. He pulled them to the side so that she was effectively sitting in between his legs. Everyone gawked at them, but neither one of them paid anyone else any mind. She tilted her head back to look up at him and winked. Cheeky girl. Turning her attention back to the game, she started the process of picking out her car. "So who am I racing against?"

Undeterred as she was, Bakugou could tell that the rest of the class was choking on their tongues, all except for Kaminari, who sank in his seat in relief. He wouldn't have to hide what he knew, even if he didn't know the full truth. Maybe it looked like one of the bets similar to what Uraraka and Bakugou had done before, but this felt different to him. It was final. This was the moment she had chosen to basically tell everyone where she and Bakugou stood and he couldn't be happier about it.

Hell, even Todoroki looked pleased where he sat on the ground in between couches. Maybe he'd figured out more than Bakugou had realized.

"You sure about that kart?" Uraraka teased Sero, a huge grin on her face that Bakugou recognized as bad news. Oh, these guys had another thing coming for them. They had no idea about the storm that Uraraka was about to rain on them and it was glorious. He soaked it all in, feeling proud that he had been the one to help her get here. Months ago, she wouldn't even pick up a controller in front of their friends in fear that she would get sick in front of them and now here she was actively goading them.

Sero picked the course, his hands gripping his controller tighter than before, and Bakugou laughed. They had no idea that this was Uraraka's favorite course, the one she always beat him on. Try as he might, he could never beat her at it, no matter what he did. He was still pissed about it. Now though, it pleased him immensely. Deku gave him an odd look for his laugh, but Bakugou didn't care. Let them think what they want. Let them know how he felt. It didn't matter. Because he had her and she had him. He'd fucking won.

Placing his hands on Uraraka's shoulders, he leaned down to say in her ear, "Kick their asses, Angel Face," loud enough for everyone to hear and she beamed.

Once the game started, Uraraka was in the zone. Never once taking his hands away from her shoulders, he could feel her body tense up whenever something bad happened, but then he'd squeeze her gently and she'd push on ahead. A few people gasped as she effortlessly dodges banana peels that Iida dropped right in front of her and then cheered when she knocked Sero out with a blue shell, just as she had done him that first night they played. When she came out as the victor, both boys and Deku were shocked at having been bested.

"Uraraka, I didn't know you were so good!" Deku exclaimed.

She blushed a little. "I might've had a little practice."

Bakugou snorted. A little, yeah right. If he knew one thing about himself, it was that practicing with him was no little thing. He put people through the ringer. Ask Kirishima about working out together. Boxing with him came at a price. He wondered how Uraraka would fair. After that team match up, he was dying to find out. She'd taken her first internship with Gunhead to work on her fighting skills, hadn't she? It'd make sense for her to continue trying to develop them and Bakugou needed to learn to be lighter on his feet.

Deku's eyes flickered from Uraraka to Bakugou, but it was Kirishima who piped up when Uraraka rested the side of her head against Bakugou's knee. "So, you two, huh?"

Bakugou leaned over and snatched the controller out of Deku's hand. "You came in last. It's my turn."

Ashido stuck out her tongue. "You just want to play since Uraraka is!"

"Well, if anyone stands a chance at winning against my girl," Bakugou replied smugly, lording over them on his position on the couch, "it's me."

Uraraka put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from giggling. Kaminari and Jirou looked at each other in such an obvious manner, their eyes widening and mouths dropping, that he was shocked no one else noticed them. Deku gave him a mind-boggled look and then turned to Todoroki, who merely shrugged his shoulders. Even Iida seemed at a loss for words, taking his glasses off to clean them and then put them back on again as if seeing them a hint clearer might give him the answer.

"Are you all gonna pick your karts or what?" Bakugou demanded.

"I'm way ahead of you," Uraraka said, having picked hers out while everyone else was flabbergasted.

Sero smiled nervously. "You're not just asking like this to throw us off, are you?"

"I don't need to play tricks in order to win," Bakugou snapped. He wasn't about to lie about something so that he could win. That wasn't who he was. When he wanted something, he was pretty obvious about it - hence that kiss - except for maybe when he didn't know himself that he wanted something. Uraraka could attest to that. When a few people gave him looks of disbelief, he scowled. "What? Do you want me to make out with her in front of you all to prove it?"

Uraraka flushed. "Bakugou!"

"Oh, this is real," Kirishima decided, chuckling to himself. He cast Todoroki a mock-pitying look. "Sorry about your luck, mate."

Todoroki shrugged noncommittally, as if he had neither an opinion or care for the matter. Bakugou didn't miss the look of appreciation that Uraraka passed him and he nodded his head. She must have told him something, at least. Whatever it was, Bakugou would get it out of her. He had his ways. She was particularly susceptible to tickles. They'd have to work on that. If all it took to get her to break down was a few tickles, villains would best her easily.

For now though, they had Mario Kart and Bakugou knew that he'd have to go the extra mile to beat her. That was what he liked about her the most: she pushed him at every step of the way. How could he say no to that?

"You ready?" Uraraka asked him, peering back at him again.

"Oh, you're on," Bakugou said with a grin.

Iida pressed start and the countdown began. It felt like the perfect beginning of a new game, except this time, they both would win if they played it right.


End file.
